Five Reasons Why Retail Stores Should Invest in a VSaaS Solution

It’s no secret that one of the keys to succeeding in the retail industry is effective loss prevention. Recent reports indicate that retail stores lose around $100 billion annually due to theft alone, not to mention the extra costs incurred by misplaced or lost items due to process or control failures.

Stemming the flow of shoplifting while managing day-to-day operations can be a huge challenge. The retail business is a complex and fast-moving machine, with geographically dispersed locations, limited loss prevention staff, and often disparate security equipment spread across multiple sites.

Video surveillance is an obvious and necessary tool for retailers looking to reign in the risk of theft. But in an economically volatile, heavily seasonal business, many retail proprietors justifiably scoff at installing and operating expensive, complex, on-premise hardware to get their video monitoring operations up and running. Thankfully, the advent of video surveillance in the cloud makes it easier, cheaper, and more efficient than ever before for retailers to effectively monitor and prevent theft.

Here are five key reasons for your retail establishment to adopt a Video-Surveillance-as-a-Service (VSasS) solution:

1. Monitor multiple sites anywhere, from any device

One of the major advantages of moving to the cloud is the ability to easily monitor all your cameras from one convenient app, be it on your phone, tablet, laptop or desktop computer. Cloud-based video surveillance solutions allow you to zero in one location or camera for more precise coverage or quickly access all location views in a grid for a comprehensive overview. Gone are the days of traveling from site to site to pore through hours of location-specific video footage in search of one specific incident–with a VSaaS solution you can easily search, sort and zero in on the information you’re seeking from the device of your choice.

2. Reduce your initial investment and save money with a subscription model

By choosing a cloud-based video surveillance systems that integrates with your existing cameras and hardware, you can greatly reduce set-up costs and get up and running in no time at all. Don’t be put off by the switching costs normally associated with moving from one platform to another–in a cloud world, the transition can be seamless and highly cost-effective. Once you’ve made the switch, you can continue to save time and money with the convenience of a subscription model that offers a predictable, reasonable monthly expense, as opposed to the variable and steadily rising costs of maintaining and repairing bulky, legacy hardware.

3. Enterprise-grade security that’s always reliable, and always backed up

Another huge plus with a VSaaS solution is the built-in redundancy that comes with storing your valuable data in a secure, reliable cloud environment. By leveraging trusted, tested cloud infrastructure from industry leaders like Google, Microsoft, or Amazon, video cloud solutions provide the peace-of-mind that your footage is not only secure, but never in risk of getting lost or deleted. Instead of relying on physical storage devices that can be easily damaged, misplaced, or perform unreliably, cloud storage gives you the peace-of-mind to know that your critical security operations are safe, solid, and always easily accessible.

4. Gain valuable business intelligence insights to improve your business

Improved security isn’t the only benefit of a VSaaS solution. With the enormous amount of data that cloud-based video surveillance solutions are able to capture, store, and analyze, you can tap into a treasure trove of analytical insights that can benefit all aspects of your retail operations. “Decision Intelligence” is essentially the practice of using data and analytics insights to inform critical decisions, and it’s a trend that is poised to revolutionize the security industry. Features like built-in people counting, heat maps, and vehicle detection not only beef up security, but offer valuable intelligence that you can use to continually improve your business.

5. Easily integrate with key security functions

Any good VSaaS solution will be built on an open platform that allows you to easily integrate functions like access control, forensic search, and many other key security functions in one easy-to-use package. Instead of wasting time running from one program or app to another, you can consolidate all your critical security functions under a single umbrella, dramatically improving efficiency and ultimately increasing the safety of your overall operations.