A common question is what is really the benefit of using MVaaS versus simply hosting the software at my enterprise? In other words, why not just buy a software package that supports all the MVaaS features via a web interface, but install it myself in my datacenter?
I am starting today a series of posts that will explore the pros and cons of these two scenarios. To begin with I’ll start with a diagram of the enterprise hosted model.
The general model is that the customer deploys an enterprise video management system in their corporate datacenter. Each remote location is connected to that datacenter via a VPN. Remote video is captured at each location using a DVR and all the DVRs are interconnected via the VPN network. Typically, a user could connect to the enterprise hosted application and then interact with any of the remote video sites
I call this configuration the Enterprise Hosted Model. I’ll introduce the MVaaS model next. After that, I’ll provide a series of posts with the pros and cons of each model.
How have you dealt with your limiting constraints? Were you successful?
In Scott Beck’s address to the team at Envysion, he shared two specific strategies that he has utilized at the companies he has founded and led. Thanks again, Scott, for sharing your insights!
Alignment
The alignment of a company is of utmost importance. And it does take long for it to become unravelled. We need to know ourselves. If we have a relative weakness, as a company, we need to align our resources and efforts to improve.
Of course aligning resources is a top concern for the leaders of an organization. However, it does not stop there. We all have a responsibility, especially in start-up companies, to contribute. If 80% of the company waits for 20% to improve, without assisting, 100% of the organization suffers.
Energy
Scott has perceived that energy in an organization is shared. All employees contribute to the environment. They either consume energy, are energy neutral, or create energy.
All employees need to ask themselves “What is my job?” The answer is not only to competently perform the duties as detailed in my job description. An organization requires more of their people. We all need to remind ourselves that we are responsible for contributing in other ways, including adding positively to the energy and culture of the organization.
As Scott stated so succinctly, “Create contagious enthusiasm!”
Envysion is in a mode of perpetual accelerated change. Cultural change is everywhere in the business, and expectations have risen dramatically. Having responsibility for the sales and marketing part of the business, there is no where where expectations have changed more.
With change comes the traditional set of emotions; fear, excitement, uncertainty and more. What I have seen from my team in terms of behavior change and attitude are all over the board. I have seen people step up and out of their roles and lead by example, I have seen people embrace the change and outperform even their own expectations and I have seen a few people’s attitudes deteriorate, as status quo went away.
Attitude has been the compelling differentiator for those people who are moving forward within the business and bringing renewed energy. Victor Frankl, a Nazi concentration camp survivor wrote, “Everything can be taken from a man but…the last of human freedoms – to chose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to chose one’s own way.” Attitude and energy are infectious, viral and my key measurement for the team going forward, as guess what, things in the future are likely to change…
Scott Beck met the team at Envysion yesterday morning. On behalf of Envysion, thank you Scott for taking the time to speak with us!
In his address, Scott shared his thoughts on what is required to create successful businesses. These include an attractive and addressable market, a compelling value proposition for the customers, and a committed management team.
However, even for companies that have all of this, success is not guaranteed.
Why? Scott’s term for it was limiting constraints. All organizations (and for that matter all individuals) have constraints that limit their effectiveness. This is somewhat self-evident. We are all imperfect, and the organizations that we create are likewise so. What is most important is how companies react to their limitations. Companies that fail in this regard severely impact their opportunity for success.
What are the limiting constraints that you have experienced in your organization? What have you done to overcome them?
At the intersection of video, data, time and place lies all the value to be gleaned from video.
If you’ve got data which includes a timestamp and a location, wouldn’t it be great if you could just paste a link to the video? What if some software could automatically do it for you?
If we had a simple web based standard for that, interfacing between any application and video could be as easy as pasting a link to YouTube.
The great part about this is that this is actually a pretty easy technical problem to solve. But the problem is there are so many ways to do and and not everyone does it the same way. This is going to change, and soon.
Envysion has a new look. While a logo in and of itself won’t secure more customers or increase stakeholder value, it can be meaningful as an expression of the brand. The new Envysion logo is intended to communicate a sophisticated, clean, confident look that bespeaks our positioning as an innovator in video surveillance.
Old logo:
New logo:
What’s missing?
A couple days ago Matt Steinfort posted on the significant investment dollars that are funding both start-up and well established companies in the broader video market.
Is this another case of irrational exuberance? Not by a long shot.
Capital infusions of this significance are not executed on a whim. The investors conduct extensive research on the company seeking investment and the greater landscape of the marketplace. They must be convinced that the target company is in a segment poised for growth, and that the team assembled is capable and well-positioned to capture a portion of this growth.
Investing in the absence of either is simply hoping that the “greater fools theory” prevails.
Contributing to the attractiveness of the video market are projections referenced in stories like this one. In a recent report, ABI Research projected that the video surveillance market (which includes surveillance cameras, computers and storage, professional services and hardware infranstructure) is poised to grow to $46.0 billion by 2013 from $13.5 billion in 2006.
This is an annual compounded growth rate of nearly 20% per year!
This type of projected growth tends to draw a crowd, and suggests that MVaaS providers and partners are in the right place at the right time. Carpe diem!
I received a fair amount of feedback from a recent post, “MVaaS – Worth its Weight in Cheese”. One question, posted in a comment by John Honovich, asked “Can you explain how this is different than a normal DVR?”.
It’s a great question that I’m not only happy to answer but even more excited to receive. Why? It demonstrates that MVaaS is somehow different than normal. We have broken ground with new technology transforming ordinary surveillance into a uniquely powerful enterprise video solution.
Following is the comment response. Thank you John for raisng the question.
At the core of Envysion’s value proposition is its ability to provide operational and marketing insights across the enterprise. The hosted aspect of the technology provides a single web-based interface for access and administration of multiple sites. When combined with enterprise data integration, such as POS, you have a powerful and real-time reporting, alerting and viewing platform.
If you want a visual understanding of comps, voids, staffing levels, work-flow analysis or who is typically purchasing product from 8-10pm, the Envysion technology allows you to do this, across multiple locations from a single login.
As it’s a managed service, there’s no software to maintain on your network or remote viewing computer. Additionally, we continually upgrade our hosted software based on recommendations from our customers. About every 30 days, these enhancements push dynamically to all users.
I read a good post by Brad Feld dealing with a recent accounting pronouncement (Feld Thoughts – FAS 157 – Another Annoying Accounting Provision). He promises more on the subject, and I’m looking forward to the posts to come.
Now that I’ve mentioned accounting, I’ll pause briefly, allowing you to complete your yawn. . . but I do urge you to read Brad’s post. It is very funny and decidedly anti-accountant, a popular sentiment after six years of SOX compliance and 146 years of benevolence from the IRS. I think you’ll enjoy his take on the topic.
That being said, and in the spirit of full disclosure, I’m a certified public accountant. However, I have a somewhat different background than many of my brethren in that I majored in psychology as an undergraduate. How did I find my way to accounting from psychology? Probably not important. What did occur to me, however, was a possible new business opportunity. Think about it. I could offer the technical reasoning for the necessity of an accounting pronouncement, and then provide counseling services post-op to subjects that remain light-headed. Talk about a two-fer. The green visor crowd would be envious…
That is a good question that many restaurant owners have to deal with on a regular basis. It can also be difficult to prove who it is that actually is taking the cookie from the jar.
By integrating Envysion Video with POS systems we give the business owner an incredible tool that can tie every transaction with video to instantly see who is taking the cookies.
With that said it is nice to be able to catch the people taking the cookies but what if we could prevent the cookies from even being taken in the first place?
Bradley L. Burt, the President & CEO of Maid-Rite Corporation who has approximately 75 franchise restaurants operating throughout the Midwest, demonstrates the capabilities of the Envysion system during the training of new employees in their franchisee Maid-Rite restaurants in the five day pre-opening onsite training provided to the franchisees by the Maid-Rite Corporate trainers and says “When we train the new franchisee employees and show them how their managers can view the details of every point of sale transaction, we usually have a couple new employees that won’t show up the next morning. They realize that it will be very difficult to steal and they move on and look for an easier restaurant to work in that doesn’t have an integrated point of sale system and camera system.”
By using Envysion’s Managed Video as a Service (MVaaS), restaurant owners can not only see who it is that is taking the cookies but it prevents many of the cookies from ever leaving the jar in the first place.
