The one last area I wanted to report back on from FS-TEC was the Video Surveillance breakout session from Day 1. I wanted to highlight Greg May’s presentation Let Me Show You the $ – The why, what, and how to a successful surveillance system.  Greg is the CTO of Paradigm Investment Group.  Greg’s presentation was a great playbook for multi-unit operators from a customer/operator perspective.  It hit on need, selection, installation, tips and most importantly value delivery.  Full disclosure here, he is an Envysion customer. 

I thought I’d share a couple quotes from his presentation that would be valuable for anyone considering a managed video solution:

Why do I need a surveillance system?
1. To monitor external influences:
• Hold ups; Robberies; Slip and Falls
2. To monitor Staff:
• Employee theft , harassment, worker’s comp issues
• Verify that employees follow operational guidelines
3. To provide assistance for remote technicians
4. Source of training video for best and worst case examples

How you see the $
When video surveillance systems are combined with business intelligence and a consistent monitoring solution, these systems can and will pay for themselves through loss prevention, staff performance and overall operational efficiency.

Great insight Greg, thanks for sharing!

While shows & conferences can vary a bit (content, location, reputation) they generally provide a decent barometer of market health as well as good anecdotal feedback. We just returned from FS-TEC (food service technology) in Long Beach. If the last three days is an indicator then I’d say the pulse of the market is ‘measured’. So what does that mean? Well in my view customers, vendors, partners were all cautious but willing to believe things are improving and willing to consider investing. It’s a good balance of understanding that while we (the economy) may not be all the way out of the woods the time may be ripe for consideration and investment to improve our lot.
So what was the direct feedback relevant to MVaaS and Envysion? First, our message on leveraging video to improve both the top and the bottom line resonated incredibly well with customers in this economy. I know, shouldn’t it always? Well we’ve certainly seen times when the marketplace was more than willing to embrace interesting technology for interesting technology’s sake, these are not those times. And that is a great thing for MVaaS & Envysion as we are all about profit improvement. A similar area that resonated particularly well was our willingness to demonstrate ROI (and do the math) for customers through a committed, prescribed pilot process. A second observation (and area of feedback) was that we are spending less time describing what managed video ‘is’ and ‘means’ to the market. And when we do describe it, customers & partners get it quickly. This is very good news as it indicates a growing awareness of the MVaaS model. While our work is certainly not done, we are benefitting both from a growing awareness of our video model as well as a strong SaaS brotherhood of companies like Salesforce.com bringing visibility to the as a service model. Of course this means we can move more quickly to the good stuff…value delivery, how we fit in with other solution components, and when we start!
For those interested in stopping by and seeing a demo, we will be at MURTEC March 10-12. Come by and check out MVaaS in action.

Fredrik Nilsson of Axis Communications gives a talk promoting the benefits of SaaS.

While the talk focuses a bit on security applications, it’s refreshing to see that they’re not focusing exclusively on “remote recording” for video.   Instead they are focusing more on “hosted software” aspect, where the video managment system is hosted.

The power point presentation does mention that DVR’s for the hosted service are often deployed on site.  This is an important requirement for many if not most applications in order to make the solution cost effective.

Envysion recently introduced support for ACTi IP cameras.  In particular our customers are demanding a mid to low priced camera that offers megapixel resolution.

Our customers needed a reliable, high resolution camera option at the lowest possible price.  ACTi’s megapixel cameras supply good quality images that exceed our customer’s requirements.  Our customers also like the several flavors of dome cameras which ACTi offers in megapixel resolutions.

We liked the easy integration with ACTi’s software and the near ubiquitous Power over Ethernet support.   For software integration, all we really need is the RTSP protocol for video transmission and a simple web interface that we can create scripts to auto-provision from our Hybrid NVR’s.  We also received excellent support from their development team.

Thanks ACTi!

I’ll caveat this by stating the Today Show is not my top source for hard hitting news. However, they featured a news story this morning that illustrated the power of video surveillance in a residential setting. Would it be possible for these guys to plead not guilty?

In 2008, nobody escaped the traumatic effect of the corn-bubble. The ill-conceived and panic-driven notion of putting food in our gas tanks caused not a ripple, but a disastrous avalanche of food inflation unseen in nearly thirty years. I’ll guide readers to my July 2008 post for the details around this. In the end, our country saw a 6.6% jump in food inflation during 2008 causing consumers to tighten their wallets and annihilating our restaurant industry.

There is a direct correlation to the 2008 panic and fuel prices. As oil futures and retail gas prices escalated, so did that of corn, thus resulting in a corn bubble. Farmers were planting plenty of ethanol-doomed corn and not much of anything else. I say “doomed” as much of the corn sat in silos against a refining bottleneck and ultimately became rancid.

Now that the oil bubble has burst, so has the corn bubble. We can expect to see the results of this in 2009 as farm fields are freed up to again plant some of the other commodity staples. We have already observed the following commodity price declines:

Corn: -33.6%

Soybeans: -39.3%

Wheat: -68%

While we’re still seeing major food manufactures hold the line on pricing, we should see some softening on the wholesale and retail front in the near future. This means lower costs and improved profits for our struggling restaurant industry AND lower prices at the grocery store and more discretionary money in every one’s pockets.

There are many components to success in business, one of them being in the right place at the right time. Over the years I’ve seen this occur both through careful planning and execution as well as sheer luck. Regardless, if you happen to get caught up in the buzz around the must-have service, product or technology, the media can be you best friend.

Over the past few months, Envysion has seen an abundance of validation from leading industry and mainstream publications who are trumpeting SaaS and other disruptive managed service technologies as one of the best ways to cut costs and do more with less in today’s economic climate. To no surprise, there appears to be a correlation to funnel growth in both direct and indirect sales efforts. Following are samples from these leading publications:

“The movement to web-accessed, centrally hosted back-office software and services has gained momentum…”
 – Nation’s Restaurant News

“…the hot technology for 2009 will be anything that can save money… businesses are saving by using web-based software instead of programs installed on their computer systems.”
 – Wall Street Journal

“Disruptive technologies are expected to emerge within the video surveillance market… e.g., Managed Video as a Service”
 – Severin Sorensen, Past Chairman Physical Security Council, ASIS

“Managed services the talk of TechSec”
 – Security Systems News

MVaaS named Top 3 Emerging Technologies in Video Surveillance
 – ipVideomarket.info

One of the early adopters of MVaaS technology has been the restaurant industry.  As such, the economic strength of the segment is of particular importance to vendors in the space. 

On Friday the National Restaurant Association released its forecast for 2009.  It is encouraging.  While concerns about the overall economy continue, the NRA forecasts only a slight decrease in sales versus 2008 (1%, when adjusted for inflation).

Not surprisingly, certain segments of the industry are expected to out-perform others.  For example, quick-service restaurants are expected to post gains well ahead of the full-service and eating-and drinking segments. 

The bottom line is that the industry is expected to display resiliency in the coming year.  This is good news to those of us who serve them.

I came across an interesting read while viewing a related article at the networkworld.com website. It cites marketing departments as one of the big drivers behind the growth. This has actually been a strong value proposition as we gain more traction in the retail market vertical. For example, analyzing linger times and traffic patterns around promotional displays provides remarkable insight into the validity of the marketing effort and ultimatley, the best ROI of each marketing dollar.

While you’re visiting the site, be sure to check out the Top 10 IT Security Companies to Watch. Specifically, the third company listed.

I applaud California Pizza Kitchen’s press release concerning 3rd quarter performance. In a very difficult environment, CPK provided indication that they’ve hit their per share earnings target. Despite providing earlier guidance that same store sales would drop by 2% in the 3rd quarter, CPK cited “operational efficiencies” as one of the main drives to hitting their per share earnings target.

Several companies publicly announced a turn towards operational efficiencies to help combat slowing sales and rising costs. Although CPK did not outline exactly what they did, I’d be very interested to see what technology was employed to help boost their profitability. Looking forward to the full readout next month.