Mark Pettit, UK Director, Strategy & Business Development, Chubb Fire & Security, explores how technology has changed the face of security and fire monitoring, for installers and end-users alike.
Chubb Fire & Security began providing monitoring services for customers worldwide over 75 years ago, and since then, there has been a dramatic change in the landscape of technological advancement. This has resulted in an industry-wide ability to constantly improve response times and accuracy when responding to fire and security system alarms and personal safety alerts, with a continual focus on improving overall customer service.
Speed
When monitoring started to grow as a service, the fire and security industry used dial-up services, which meant response times were relatively slow. Today, thanks in part to the use of Internet Protocol (IP) in new systems, monitoring companies can set target times in terms of minutes for handling all alarm issues. For example, Chubb’s target time to respond is within three minutes (in the UK), with many responses actually much quicker than that.
Sophistication
With an increasing focus on security in modern cities and businesses, Chubb today monitors over 1.3 million sites in more than 17 countries with a variety of alarm and surveillance equipment manned 24/7, 365 days a year, just a part of the continuous monitoring taking place globally. This provides some demonstration of how the monitoring business has developed. Monitoring centres worldwide are now state-of-the-art offices with the latest technology, reflecting the increasingly complex security environment, where technological developments and innovation allow for more control by businesses, as well as special lighting that combats the potentially damaging effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), to support health and welfare of employees.
Regulation
The industry is well regulated – all monitoring providers are held accountable by the regulatory bodies based on their speed of response. Key players in the industry also work closely with insurance companies to understand the levels of monitoring required to ensure customers are provided with the appropriate protection that enables them to meet their insurance requirements.
Smart
Today, monitoring companies use more sophisticated solutions – including self-service portals and real time information and data – allowing for much quicker engagement and response times. Using smart technology should allow monitoring providers to reduce the number of data amendments required for individual clients, thereby increasing efficiency for the end-user and its own monitoring capabilities.
Technological advancements have provided the monitoring industry with the tools it needs to increase speed-of-response and ensure monitoring accuracy and excellence. It continues to look for ways to improve performance with the increasing use of automation and innovation, whilst maintaining a compliant ethical and customer-focused approach to monitoring solutions.
Download this report, produced in conjunction with Texecom, to discover how increasing processing power, accelerating broadband speeds, cloud-managed solutions and the internet of things and transforming the intruder alarm market, and whether firms are adopting these innovative new technologies.
