FEW dealerships these days don’t have CCTV installed. It can be used a crime deterrent and for crime prevention, to provide evidence after an event, for health and safety and to aid in business processes.
For some companies, it’s a bit of fit and forget scenario and the CCTV is only used post an event. However, preventing a perpetrator before or in the act of a criminal event is far more effective than handing over evidence to police after the damage has been done.
Monitoring your CCTV system makes the best use of it. Employing security guards to perform this function has been the traditional approach, but is expensive; there’s the cost of the guards themselves, then the monitoring equipment and the facilities to house them all. So, what’s the alternative?
Chris Coughlin, Technical Product Manager – CCTV, Intruder and Monitoring, Stanley Security, explains:
“Using a third party, in the form of dedicated professional Security Monitoring Centres, provides you with the technology, experience and resources to monitor your CCTV when you need it, but remotely.
“Rather than having security guards sat in front of a video wall looking for potential issues on site, modern day CCTV Monitoring is driven by schedules and alarms making it efficient and effective.
“Alarms can be generated through a range of devices, including CCTV, but also from other security systems and even environmental devices to detect flooding for example. Furthermore, CCTV cameras are now readily available with in-built analytics that really broaden the use of CCTV.
“These stretch from basic CCTV analytics, such as motion detection and line crossing, through to more advanced analytics that can identify loitering, tailgating, queues, object removal and even unattended baggage. There are also specific types of cameras that drive alarms, such as thermal, people counting and facial recognition.
“You can also define schedules, where a Security Operations Centre will check single or a series of cameras (providing “remote guard tours”, which is a virtual version of a security guard patrol) at a pre-defined frequency, looking for anything out of the ordinary. ”
Weighing up the Costs
Using a CCTV Monitoring Centre used to come at a high cost but in recent years has become more accessible and is now certainly a strong alternative to traditional manned guarding, particularly when paired up with a keyholding and alarm response service.
Coughlin said that depending on your provider, manned guarding can cost anywhere between £11 – £15 an hour, with most companies requiring you to have a minimum of eight hour shifts before committing a member of staff. This would cost you from £88 per day for an eight-hour shift, or £264 for 24 hours.
“These costs mount up quickly. If you were to have a single security guard on duty overnight, doing eight-hour shifts, seven days a week, then you are looking at £32,032 per year minimum.
“If you then wanted to extend that coverage to include round the clock cover over the weekend, then the cost jumps to at least £50,336 per year. To get comprehensive, round the clock coverage, seven days a week, you will need to pay a minimum of £96,096 per year. And let’s not forget, these costs don’t cover the extra monitoring equipment you will need to invest in, or the cost of the room, energy bills, refreshments etc.”
How does that compare to a third-party CCTV Monitoring Centre service?
Well firstly that depends on the type of service you have opted for. The two main types of monitoring service are visually verified (linked to another alarm device) or camera activated.
Coughlin said: “A visually verified service is the entry level option for CCTV Monitoring. All the activity is driven by an external device, such as an intruder alarm, meaning the activation counts are quite low. Depending on the size of your system, this can cost anywhere from £250 – £600 per year.
“If you opt for a camera activated service, the price range goes up to anywhere from £600 to £3,000 per year. The price is driven by the size of system, type of analytics used and volume of activations, hence the wide difference. In this scenario, the activity is driven by the analytics on each camera.
“As activities are either done on a schedule, or are driven by an alarm, you’re only paying for when there’s work being conducted, making it a very productive and cost-effective solution.
“Whilst these are the standard services on offer, most Monitoring Centres will also be able to provide a bespoke offering to incorporate several services together, such as camera activated CCTV monitoring with a guard tour every eight hours to check all the external doors, plus remote audio challenge when a risk is identified. But even this works out far cheaper than employing a security guard.”
Delivering a Response
One of the reasons many organisations continue to employ security guards permanently on site, is that they can respond swiftly to alarms and events. But does the cost-to-benefit ratio work for you?
Coughlin said: “A more cost-effective approach is to combine the ‘audio challenge’ service supplied by remote monitoring stations with a third-party key holding and alarm response specialist service (which costs up to £100 a month).
“This audio challenge solution allows you to virtually connect video surveillance cameras into your existing intruder panel with the enhanced ability to visually verify and help deter or disperse unwanted visitors from a site by speaking to them – literally ‘challenging’ them as to why they are there.
“In most instances, this will send the intruder off swiftly. If this isn’t the case and the event needs to be escalated then the monitoring centre can either call the police if a criminal activity is being conducted or can alert a specialist security company to attend on your behalf.
“This gives you the best of both worlds: feet on ground when you really need them and only paying a fraction of the price of employing on site security guards.”
Changing Times
The perception of CCTV monitoring has always been that of a cost-prohibitive service. However, in recent years it has become more accessible and is now certainly a strong alternative to traditional manned guarding.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown early on in 2020 (plus ongoing regional lockdowns) saw a surge of interest in professional remote CCTV monitoring as premises remained empty for weeks, turning into months, with many still remaining empty or with very limited number of staff on site.
Organisations have seen the benefits of this approach to monitoring their premises and have not been faced with a hefty bill that many are ill equipped to pay. It looks like the tide has turned in favour of CCTV monitoring.
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