My last posts MVaaS and Enterprise Hosted Video Compared and Managed Video as a Service Explained, introduced the difference between MVaaS and Enterprise Hosted Video as well as the common benefits they both provide. This is the third of 5 posts in a series about the differences. (The previous were MVaaS Total Cost of Ownership and Managing Video Software).

The third differentiator between an enterprise hosted solution and MVaaS is based on the complexity of the network. In a typical enterprise hosted solution, access to the application is via a VPN infrastructure. I built the first VPN applications in 1992 at ANS (which ran the original Internet backbone called the NSFnet. VPN technology has improved significantly since then (thank goodness), but it is still complex to install and administer, especially in an enterprise with many sites.

Why do you need the VPN? The VPN is needed to interconnect each remote DVR with the managed video application. In addition, the VPN is often needed to provide access to the managed video application itself. The Internet can be a dangerous place for an unsuspecting application. If the web software is hosted in your datacenter, you probably don’t want to open it to the big-bad Internet, unless you really know what you are doing with respect to Internet security.

If you already have a VPN built for your company, then it may be simple to add the application to it. However, if you need to build a VPN, you’re in for a big network project.

In contrast, a typical MVaaS application, by its nature, doesn’t require a VPN so that this work is alleviated.

Access to the MVaaS application is through the public Internet and each DVR communicates with the hosted application directly, so no VPN is needed. This results in a simpler network configuration in most cases.

In the spirit of making our value proposition more understandable and more clear, I’ll propose the following question: How long do you think it takes an operator to benefit from being able to see what is going on at their remote locations? Does it take a month, a week, hours of reviewing video?

How about less than 30 seconds?  Ignore for a second the phenomenon that sometimes happens with employees where they instantly behave better once a camera has been installed. (I say to ignore this phenomenon because while it may be instant, it doesn’t last very long – the evidence would be all of the stupid things you see employees doing on surveillance footage that makes its way to CNN – in almost every case they knew there were cameras there)  So do you think that an operator could learn something meaningful about their business in less than 30 seconds?

Here are two real examples that would suggest they can and do.  First, the CEO of a multi-unit retail brand is sitting in a conference room with us getting his first pitch on how he can use video.  We have one of his stores up on the service and pull it up on the projector.  It is a simple live shot of the cashier in one of his stores.  He doesn’t say anything for a few seconds and then, ignoring me, he turns to one of his directors of operations that is in the room and says “is that where the receipt printer is supposed to be?”  The ops guy looked and said “No.  I thought we had moved them all but it looks like we missed that one”  Turns out that the standard store layout has the receipt printer in a certain place on the counter that is consistent with the customer experience this company is trying to create.   While this is a relatively small issue in the grand scheme of things it is also an example of how easy it is for an executive to have an impact if they can just see what is going on in their locations – and in less than 30 seconds.  Note that the receipt printer was moved by the end of that same day.

The second example happened earlier this week when I showed two loss prevention professionals their first site that we had turned up the day before.  I had checked to see what the camera views looked like before showing them how to access their site.  We pulled up video from around 8:00am in the office from earlier that morning – there was a woman counting cash and putting it into several change drawers.  “Let’s see how she does” they said.  She didn’t do very well.  20 seconds into the video the woman leaves the office, three cash drawers open, cash on top of the counter and laying across the cash drawers – she doesn’t return for over a minute. “Yikes – I’ll be calling her tonight”  Major violation in cash handling procedures, less than 30 seconds after looking at the first video ever from that site.

Not every insight will come this quickly, but if you can make video very easy to use and enable users to get to the video that is important to them very quickly, they will better understand their business and can keep improving their operations.

So is this ability to rapidly provide insight unique to MVaaS or do you get it with any low-end traditional DVR solution that you deploy?  Certainly you could have gotten the same insights with a generic no-name DVR with some rudimentary internet access – no question.  Having said that, let me use the same two examples to describe how MVaaS differs.   I’ll do that in another post tomorrow.

The bell, siren and flashing strobe, indicating a new sale has been recorded, has been a standard in many businesses.  To me it conjures up memories of car dealerships, telemarketing departments and carpet stores.  So when we put a giant bell in the center of our offices that our salespeople ring when they close a deal, I was more than a bit skeptical.

But it has been infectious.  Yesterday, one of our sales guys said, “It’s been a couple days and I’m jonesing to ring that bell.”  In our environment, the bell has been the symbol of progress, of cultural change and celebration.  It is helping to link our sales team with our operations and development counterparts who are now asking “what did we win?” and “who is the new client?”  Everyone in the office now stands and applaudes when they hear the bell.

While the bell might not be right for your environment, taking the time to celebrate is.  It has been our way to draw the company together when good things happen.  I’m interested in other ways companies highlight important events and would welcome your thoughts and suggestions. 

Our sales people now have the fever and the only prescription is more cowbell…

Sometimes it takes me a couple of times before what should be an obvious truth sinks in.  Usually someone says something that I don’t fully internalize, then I hear it again, then I read something that triggers a thought, then it dawns on me and I wonder how I didn’t get it in the first place.

In this particular case, that obvious truth is this: we aren’t doing a good enough job of describing what MVaaS is and why you (or our customers) should care.  We’ve gotten some good comments on the blog to that effect.  Our esteemed colleague John Honovich pointed this out.  And true to form, I read a marketing guru piece on the subject on the plane ride home today that finally sealed the deal.

While I love our service and the new category that we’ve established and I (and the rest of the people that post on this blog) can spend hours telling you why its different and why its valuable and why it will help you improve your business, most of you won’t make it that far, frustrated (or bored) because you don’t know what we do or what MVaaS is besides another acronym.

We need that simple statement that describes, without buzzwords who we sell to, what value we provide and why we are different.  We’ve done this exercise a number of times and have several versions of this (don’t ask why we didn’t share these on the blog already – my ego can only handle missing one obvious truth a day) I think I’ll wing it here and see what we get.  Usually these exercises take forever as you labor over each and every word, so forgive me if it isn’t perfect the first time – the point is to help you understand what we do as soon as possible, I can drive myself and my team crazy later wordsmithing the bejeezes out of this.

What is MVaaS and what are we selling?

For operators of multi-unit businesses that want to improve their operations, we provide easy remote access to live and recorded video that can be tied to point of sale and other systems, enabling users to improve profitability and their customer experience but without causing a strain on the companies IT staff or network

I’m already resisting the urge to wordsmith.  In fact, with blogs I think I can wordsmith this and you won’t even know so I may just do that. 

What do you think?  First, do you understand it?  Second, is there a better way to say it?

Let me know your thoughts.  If you tell me a couple times (and I haven’t already reached my epiphany limit for the day) it may actually sink in.

My last posts MVaaS and Enterprise Hosted Video Compared and Managed Video as a Service Explained, introduced the difference between MVaaS and Enterprise Hosted Video as well as the common benefits they both provide. This is the second of 5 posts in a series about the differences. (The previous was MVaaS Total Cost of Ownership).

This second post discusses the implication of managing software at your premise versus the SaaS model.

When video management is hosted by the enterprise, the IT organization takes on full operational ownership of that software. There are several advantages of this situation. First, the IT organization has complete control over change management. All modifications to the software such as bug patches or minor/major version upgrades are implemented by the IT staff. As such, they can be easily coordinated with other projects.

However, this benefit of Enterprise hosted video may, at times, be a problem. Over the past few years, I have met with entry level, mid level, and senior level IT staff from dozens of retail chains. There is one common theme to all of the people I have met: they are up to their ears in alligators and don’t have time to take on a new project. The implication of this is that they generally don’t have time to perform the management tasks of an Enterprise video system and so the software itself slowly rots. This software rot not only can cause failures of existing capability but usually results in very slow introduction of new features as well.

MVaaS solves this problem by outsourcing all of the software management into the network. Users never encounter outdated software because they run the version in the network, which is continuously improved and advanced.

What about the software that resides in the DVR? I think the same general argument applies. Enterprise hosted video systems can provide mechanisms to automatically upgrade remote DVR software. But, just as above, IT time staff will be required to initiate the upgrade.

MVaaS systems can provide remote DVR upgrade as part of the service offering and thus provide the same benefits as described above.

Therefore, if your IT staff are overburdened, MVaaS may provide an opportunity to add video management without adding to their daily work load.

My last two posts MVaaS and Enterprise Hosted Video Compared and Managed Video as a Service Explained introduced the difference between MVaaS and Enterprise Hosted Video as well as the common benefits they both provide. Today, I’ll begin a 5 part series that discusses some of the differences.

Total cost of ownership is a well known analysis method to determine the overall cost of purchasing a system. Let’s consider how this applies to MVaaS versus Enterprise Hosted Video. For the sake of this discussion, I’ll assume that the cost of purchasing and installing camera equipment, as well as the cost of the DVR hardware/software is identical for both models. The focus of this post will be on the cost of the server-side application that manages all the remote DVRs.

To begin with, let’s assume you are going to implement the software as a hosted service within the Enterprise. Below is a list of costs you are going to incur:

• Cost of the hardware server to run the application
• Server license costs (application license, operating system, database)
• To maintain some level of high availability for the software, you need to double the costs above for a warm standby server in the event the primary server fails. (If you choose not spend this cost, then your enterprise hosted service will be at greater risk of being unavailable.)
• A percentage of IT staff expense for configuration, installation, and network setup of above hardware and software. (The network configuration will be non-trivial; a later post will explain this further).
• Annual software maintenance and support fees. Annual hardware maintenance support fees.
• Ongoing operational expense (datacenter expense for electrical power and cooling).
• Ongoing IT staff expense for server management.

Whereas an MVaaS model has

• Monthly subscription fee
• A percentage of IT staff expense for consultation to insure users have unfettered access to the MVaaS server web site (much less than above, due to the fact IT need only allow HTTP port 80 access to a web site, which they undoubtedly already do for other sites).

Clearly, if the monthly MVaaS subscription fee is reasonable, then MVaaS has a lower total cost of ownership than comparative enterprise hosted software.

(Authors note: if anyone would like to provide me with appropriate pricing for an Enterprise hosted server software license fee and general sizing of the hardware needed, I would be delighted to build a detailed spreadsheet view of above comparing to Envysion Video).

Image via Wikipedia

SaasBlogs has an interesting question on pricing for SaaS companies – When should software be sold pay per use? 

Why did I find the post, and related comments, so interesting?  Specifically because the question is central to almost every business, and answering it requires thoughtful consideration.

The author postulates that there are two primary pricing options for SaaS applications – fixed recurring fee for unlimited usage (FRF) and pay-per-use (PPU) (author’s note: my acronyms for this post only).  Vendors of SaaS offerings should choose each according to the value acquisition of the customer.  For example, if the customer benefits greatly from sporadic usage, allow them to PPU.  However, if they can continue to benefit as usage increases, provide the FRF model.

I understand the positioning, but would advise MVaaS providers to proceed with caution.  In my view, PPU is risky for MVaaS software vendors, and should rarely be implemented. 

Why?  There are several reasons. 

1. PPU models communicate to the customer that they are first and foremost an opportunity for increased revenue.  Don’t believe me, what do you think of ATM user fees?  Yea, me too.
2. PPU models discourage usage.  There is no surer way for a customer to question the value of a MVaaS solution than to have them under-utilize it and fail to realize all of the available benefits.
3. PPU models introduce uncertainty.  Humans detest uncertainty, and decision-makers are human.  The certainty of $50 per month, no exceptions, is comforting.
4. PPU models are not typical in the software space.  Be prepared to answer tough customer questions on how the PPU model will save them money in the short and long-runs.  Otherwise, be prepared to congratulate your competitors.

Recently our Strategic Partner Channel Manager showed me a clip from a local Denver Pizza Store.   Having deployed MVaaS, they were able to view their “workforce” of six effectively stand around for 15 minutes drinking soda while one of the delivery drivers slept  on the Make table.  Prep areas needed attention as did general cleaning because in a restaurant there is always something that needs to be done.  At first blush, the video is extremely entertaining until you put yourself in the store owners shoes. 

Effectively the owner spent about $20 in labor costs and violated a number of health codes.  What’s the big deal, well in a single digit profit business, everything.  Knowing the owner, he’ll use it to manage process adherence and teach employees the correct practice.  He’ll look at his staffing models and adjust them to reflect projected business and likely he’ll remove the unmotivated workers in hopes of attracting a more respectful work force.  Rising costs coupled with unmotivated workers continue to be a recipe for disaster, MVaaS can help…

My kids swim, that is what they do.  The lessons learned from competing in a sport that requires them to practice at 5:00 a.m. four to six times a week are incredible.  But the move that the Colorado State Swimming Organization made, including Paralympians at the Long Course Meters State Meet, in Colorado Springs (July 24-27th) was brilliant.

Normally, the Paralympians compete at a separate meet held after the State Championships.  Instead, this year these amazing athletes were included and swam along side the kids.   Many are going to the Paralympics in Beijing in a few weeks.   It was incredibly touching to watch the respect that these great athletes were given and that they in turn reciprocated.   In addition, watching them adapt what we might consider handicaps in to a competitive swim stroke was a great life lesson.  We all having limiting factors, these athletes showed us how they chose to deal with them.  

My 12 year old son, said, “those guys make the best of their handicaps and that was really motivating to me.”  On so many levels, having the Paralympians in the field was a great lesson; one of acceptance, perserverance, support, respect, social repsonsibility and accountability.  Afterall, isn’t that what sports is supposed to be about?  Thanks to a great move by the CSI, it is this weekend…

Yesterday, I posted an article describing the Enterprise Hosted Model of deploying a security application. Today, I will describe the MVaaS model.

The basic difference is that in the above picture, the security application software is not installed at the enterprise. Instead, the application resides in the network, hosted out of a datacenter (referred to as the MVaaS datacenter in the above diagram).

DVRs can still be deployed at each location. However, instead of communicating with a server component that resides in the datacenter, the DVRs communicate with the application that resides in the network.

When a user interacts with the application, they point their web browser to the application in the network.

There are several similarities of these two models. For instance, in both models, the user can access the security application via HTTP/HTML, i.e., with a web browser. The web server simply resides in a different place. In the enterprise hosted model, the web server resides in the enterprise datacenter; in MVaaS, the web server is hosted on the public Internet.

Both models can provide a centralized management console that allows one-stop control of users, roles, access lists, and configurations of DVRs.

Either model can support integration with business systems, such as point-of-sale systems. The data from all locations can be transferred back to a single location (typically, the server in the datacenter at the enterprise or the MVaaS datacenter in the network). This enables searching, reporting and alerting over multiple stores simultaneously.

There are also several differences between these two models. In general, they fall into 5 categories:

1. Total cost of ownership
2. Software and change management
3. Complexity of the network
4. Sharing and collaboration beyond the enterprise
5. Disaster Recovery

Over the next few posts, I’ll dive into each one of these in more detail.