Businesses are suffering robberies at an alarming rate. This can range from employee theft, costing American companies $50 billion a year, to vandalism, which similarly costs $15 billion. Many instances of retail burglary happen when you’re not there. This often involves breaking and entering into a business, property damage, and theft of valuable merchandise. Obviously, you want to avoid all of these things!
These statistics make a persuasive argument: You should install a state-of-the-art video surveillance system that can be your eyes and ears when you aren’t around. These sophisticated systems up the ante on criminals by applying artificial intelligence (AI) to mitigate your risk.
The Risks — and the Benefits — of a Business Surveillance System
About 10% of small businesses experience a break-in each year. These events occur at night, on weekends, or otherwise outside of regular business hours. In the majority of cases, the burglars are gone before the police even arrive.
These thieves are opportunistic, choosing locations that have poor or no security features. This can include low lighting, no window bars, insufficient door locks, and no surveillance system in place. Criminals look for easy targets and get away with their “work” more often than you might imagine. The data on property crimes reveals:
- 13.9% of burglaries are solved
- 18.9% of thefts are solved
- 13.8% of motor vehicle thefts are solved
- 22.4% of arson incidents are solved
Thankfully, company owners have tools available to help them mitigate some risks that come with trying to ensure the security of their business.
Nine Problems Video Surveillance Systems Can Solve
Installing a commercial video surveillance system can prepare your business for almost anything. It can provide you with eyes and ears on your property even if you aren’t present.
1. Valuable Items Small Enough to Carry Away
Construction sites are high risk, with tools, copper piping, and even heavy equipment onsite at all hours. A surveillance system for a business can record the activities of thieves and help you recover stolen property.
2. Theft Isn’t the Only Threat
Modern surveillance systems can have automated deterrence features to scare away trespassers—even if they aren’t thieves. If a neighborhood kid is traversing your vacant property as a shortcut and gets hurt, you could be legally liable.
3. Employee Theft and Workplace Compliance
The best video surveillance can track and record evidence of things like workplace sexual harassment to help resolve disputes. It can also identify unsafe practices, helping you fix them before dealing with a worker’s compensation claim down the road.
4. Properties Without Electricity or WiFi
Modern surveillance cameras can be solar-powered and wireless-enabled, so that they run securely even without power. These remote cameras transmit data 24/7straight to you.
5. Fast and Easy Footage Search
An advanced commercial video surveillance system can record and tag security footage for easy recovery thanks to artificial intelligence (AI). When it’s time to recover the footage, easy search features (like what you use every day on Google) make footage recovery fast and simple.
6. Vandalism on Open Lots
Vandalism can be a costly problem for businesses like car dealerships. Hundreds of new cars sitting on a lot can seem like an easy target for miscreants. Many lots use live security patrols, but onsite guards can’t watch everywhere at once. Guards turning their back leave holes that criminals can literally walk straight through. Video surveillance tools can monitor these sections of your dealership and plug these security gaps. These intelligent tools can be programmed to alert a trained monitor if they sense movement when you’re not around.
7. Business Efficiency
Video surveillance analytics can be used to help identify congestion points in warehouses and increase worker productivity. Real-time video footage of your staff can do more than help deter theft; it can help identify and correct problems such as the improper use of heavy equipment or other safety concerns.
8. Extra Proof for Resolving Disputes
These tools can be useful for solving disputes between customers and employees. When a workplace incident of this nature occurs, it’s up to the manager on-site or business owner to determine what happened. A surveillance camera can protect your business and employees from a wrongful lawsuit or be used later on to prosecute in the event of a violent act.
9. On-The-Job Training
The video surveillance you capture can be a good training tool for your employees. Whether you’re teaching them how to watch out for shoplifters or how to handle an angry customer, sometimes seeing a real example is the best tool for learning.
The best video surveillance systems today offer AI features in a cloud-connected device. This device doesn’t require the cost or security risk of an on-site server. Data is recorded as activity happens and is sent directly into the Internet. These AI-driven tools can be set to respond to situations in a specific way. For example, they might sound an alarm or a voice recording to scare off intruders. This is a result of HUMANALYTICS® – the process of humans continually training AI enabled security equipment to make the solution better over time.
Pro-Vigil is a leading security firm in our nation. We offer the best video surveillance systems on the market and can design an effective program to keep your business secure. Contact us today to solve your biggest business security issues.
