Surveillance means Security

Mohd. Nasir 
Senior Manager - Marketing, CSP
Canon India

It is not that TV always pollutes, but it carries some knowledge also. Have you ever noticed how on these popular detective series police gets hold of the culprit. In general, the usage of IT and telecom is shown and in specific surveillance infrastructure. The advantages of surveillance systems over physical security such as ability to allow remote monitoring, etc., have resulted in their wide deployment across India. Increasing terrorist strikes, dwelling infrastructure and rising criminal activities are some the factors that have resulted in the demand for reliable and intelligent security systems.

Surveillance is your Third eye

Post the Triple Mumbai blast in 2011, all agencies - the Mumbai Police, the Intelligence Bureau and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) - started pooling their efforts and resources to scan voluminous forensic evidence and CCTV footage in a bid to achieve a breakthrough. This shows the importance of - and the need for -surveillance infrastructure in a nation. 

Security and surveillance is a huge sector in India. It is actually divided into three main categories. One is called Video surveillance, wherein we have CCTVs, IP cameras, intercoms, intrusion detection. Then, there is Electronic axis control, which includes smart card, bio-matrix and swipe cards. The third is the private security which is mostly the detective service or VIP security.

A research conducted in community settings suggests that the purposes of CCTVs are prevention, detection, improving safety, gathering evidence and acting as a general site management tool.

Keeping this in mind, manufacturers are realizing that, though the image quality is very important, but it is not only about pixels but there is much more to it. 

Market Trends

As mentioned in my previous story where I tried to define the role of channel community in the Security and Surveillance, the markets with untapped potential include Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia, Columbia, Vietnam and South Africa, besides the rapidly-growing customer base across China, India, Russia and Brazil. Traditionally controlled by analog-based surveillance systems, the Indian market is now shifting towards digitized, i.e. IP-based surveillance systems. 

Similarly, there has been progress with regard to evolution of smart storage, and maturity and convergence among interoperability standards as well. With evolving processors, intelligent video analytics is reaching out to fresh, unprecedented dimensions and in turn it is helping manage and employ silos of raw video content. 

"Now, one of the verticals which is video surveillance vertical is growing ripe in India - more so, post Mumbai attacks and other terrorist attacks. In the video surveillance vertical, CCTV or the IP surveillance camera is shaping up very well. India is still managed with old-fashioned analog camera systems, which contributes to around 70% of the industry," informs Mohd. Nasir, Senior Manager - Marketing, CSP, Canon India.

HD over Coax has been struggling despite the potential largely due to compatibility, scalability and storage issues, which are now being addressed industry wide, proactively. So, the existing analog base stands a good chance of moving to HD over the next two to three years, depending upon the pace of such developments. Forecasts suggest considerable impact on the storage market with over 70% of network security camera shipments comprising of mega pixel by 2015. The emergence of Cloud, Mobile Apps and I/SaaS (Infrastructure/ Surveillance as a Service) is also bound to be pumping the security and surveillance market. 

With the Union Home Ministry's diktat to the managements of malls, hotels and other public places to install CCTVs and store video footage, a new window of opportunity has opened and since performance is very critical in such projects, the storage would be done by using NAS. "Thus, Iomega aims to redefine video surveillance technology by delivering a high-performance, low-cost all-in-one IP solution targeting small businesses and distributed enterprises. The strategy is to tap the market with technological innovation. Further, we also see a strong demand from households not only for periphery but also for internal surveillance. The concept of smart homes is gaining popularity and with more working members in a household, people today are looking at video surveillance as an option to monitor the security at home. The Iomega, MindTree and Tulip solution also looks at serving this segment and we believe we are well prepared to serve this opportunity of smart homes or in fact smart cities," adds Rajiv Mukul, Vice-President - Asia-Pacific & Japan Iomega Sales.

Potential customers

These surveillance systems are finding their space across industry verticals, namely, government & transportation, banking & financial, retail, commercial, industrial and residential. Everybody is talking about security today. So, we are anticipating a lot of growth and as a company D-Link is focussed on the entire surveillance and the security industry. They see opportunities on the enterprise side and secondly on the small offices and individual users side too. "We, at D-Link, through our D-Link cloud solution are focussed on individual and the small office segment for surveillance and we have a range of IP cameras and software for the enterprises which will focus on these verticals according to the requirements," shares Tushar Sighat, CEO, D-Link India.

Eric Yang India Country Manager Edimax Technologies	Rajiv Mukul Vice - President - APAC & JapanIomega Sales	Tushar Sighat   CEO D-Link India

Eric Yang, India Country Manager, Edimax Technologies, informs, "Our Edimax IP cameras are largely used by SOHO and SIs. We have done some SMB projects too. Ideally, the current IP cameras are not ONVIF ready. So, we do not have the option to approach the major SIs or partners who can use Edimax cameras in their solutions."

Security requirements vary depending on the size and nature of organizations within sectors. However, the need for effective security is universal, as businesses embrace mobile, social and Cloud and face the changing external and internal threat landscape. IP-based security is certainly the right proposition if any new company or business entity wants to implement the security as it is the future-proof technology. Integration of hands on gadgets and value-added features can be obtained only through IP-based surveillance. This certainly gives a better RoI in the long term.

In the BFSI sector, there is a huge impetus on adoption of technology to improve security. The basic equipments used in banks for security are the latest CCTV cameras along with physical security. But slowly the banking sector is maturing and realizing that automation is also equally important for security, also it helps in making processes simple. The basic infrastructure remains the same but the differentiation comes from the software which analyses and works on all data that provides by these cameras. Hardware vendors provide all the camera recording and the software vendor gives the analysis and these analysis will differ according to verticals from retail to city surveillance to manufacturing.

Mohamed Nasir shares that tourism is also looking at surveillance as a key factor. The best example is if someone wants to see how Delhi looks from the top of the Qutub Minar, he cannot climb because of the risk factor involved in it. But now people can see the view while they are on the ground with cameras capturing top views for the tourists. 

Secured Tomorrow!

All said and done, one should not forget that surveillance cannot be handled solely by the IP cameras manufacturers. Surveillance as project requires multiple players to get involved in it. It involves a camera, it involves a recording software, it invovles PC, high-end bandwidth of data transmission. In India, if the vendor fails to provide one of these, the entire project fails. 

In 2011, in terms of vertical markets, government & transportation and banking & financial verticals accounted for total 77.33% of the market share. However, other verticals such as retail, residential, commercial and industrial are seen as key growth verticals. Going by these figures and forecasts, the security and surveillance sector definitely seems to be on an upward trend.