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January 27, 2021

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Cloud migration

Move towards CCTV in the cloud leads to growing expectations of security systems installers

According to an England-wide CCTV management study, commissioned by NW Security, facilities management (FM) and security departments still manage a third of all medium and large-sized businesses’ CCTV systems, while 27% are now managed by IT departments.

Frank Crouwel, Managing Director of NW Security, commented: “It’s interesting that, even though 61% of all CCTV systems are now on the network and the cloud CCTV migration trend is now accelerating, a third of all firms we captured in this study are still relying on security or FM teams to optimise their CCTV systems.

“This indicates to me that there is a big opportunity for specialist security integrators to assist in-house teams in updating and optimising their existing systems, as the technology has improved significantly in recent years and it has made it more difficult for in-house teams to keep systems optimised.”

Just over a quarter are now managed by IT departments, according to the study. Frank added: “IT heads have often fought shy of taking over the management of CCTV systems. However, many are being forced to take a deeper interest now that the technology and installer partner capability is available to move CCTV into the cloud – enabling firms to resource CCTV system management and expertise from OPEX, via more flexible monthly subscription-style ‘CCTV-as-a-Services’.”

Less than a third (29%) of England-based firms with over 50 employees have now outsourced the management of their video surveillance systems to an external security company.

Public sector bodies are slightly more likely to outsource security system management: 31% of public sector bodies captured by this study had fully outsourced security systems support and management.

10% of 10 medium and large-sized businesses have adopted a hybrid approach – working with a security installer for their expertise when needed, whilst still managing their CCTV systems day-to-day in-house.

Frank commented: “We are seeing more businesses looking to expert partners to help them to upgrade, improve and optimise their CCTV so that they can get the most out of existing systems.

“So, I was a bit surprised to find that only one in every 10 firms captured by our study had a declared policy of working with an external partner today. This finding is worthy of further investigation during 2021. I suspect more will outsource to trusted experts as systems become more feature rich and Cloud CCTV migration levels rise.”

Expectations on security systems installers

NW Security believes that the CCTV market is undergoing fundamental change and plans to investigate the implications of that change in a second study that it will run this year. Its first study conducted in September 2020 indicated businesses were starting to expect more from both their systems and from the installers and contractors that support them.

There was also early evidence that, as companies consider moving CCTV systems up into the cloud, they are tending to in-source more CCTV management decision-making as they focus on upskilling internally. These changes will be explored in NW Security’s 2021 market study.

The findings suggest that specialist support is a vital requirement from security systems installers, while 32% of firms would seek ‘evidence of cloud migration’ or ‘in the cloud CCTV management capability’.

A quarter of firms also planned to select a partner based on evidence of ‘strong partnerships with best of breed vendors and service providers’. Nearly a third (32%) would select based on a third party installers’ ‘collaborative approach to working with us to improve our CCTV system and how it is supported’.

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