Coming of age

The observation system has always been a neat idea on the drawing board, but for many installers these packaged-up CCTV kits have never quite lived up to their true potential in the market. Until now, perhaps.

The latest generation systems move the game on considerably and overcome a number of down-sides which – for some at least – have outweighed the benefits.

Why are observation systems worth a look now if they haven’t attracted you in the past? Quite simply because the end-user market is ready to buy them.

For the installer wishing to build up business with higher value sales to existing customers, the modern observation system has real ‘high tech’ appeal. It offers better performance and more sophisticated functions, allowing you to make an easy and obvious step in moving the customer forward a technology generation.

For the same reason, those looking to connect with new customers in the small or medium sized business sector (offices, retail outlets, leisure facilities etc) may find that observation systems are now suddenly more useful products to offer. To these customers they look good at first glance and equally, when they’re up and running, they perform well.

In short, they are intended to impress buyers.

Good sense for installers?

But do they impress installers? In the past, one of the big negative factors which counted against observation systems was the feeling that buyers were being tied-in to proprietary technology. Observation systems weren’t cheap, and somehow it felt like better sense to cherry-pick the most suitable individual items and assemble your own system from scratch. That way you could mix-and-match components, swap bits of kit between sites, and easily find spares and replacements whenever you needed them. There were usually better profit margins working this way too.

But the most advanced observation systems now overcome the ‘proprietary’ objection by featuring BNC connectors which will accept any make or model of camera, as well as RJ45 connectors for the plug & play cameras.

As an illustration of this, Samsung Electronics’ VPP observation system is truly ‘plug and play’ – allowing up to eight new and/or existing cameras to be quickly linked up to a monitor, via its built in Triplex multiplexer.

Whereas in the past you were limited to whatever camera option happened to come with the package, now you can connect up any model you want – for example, re-using a customer’s existing cameras, or buying in specialist cameras.

With Samsung’s offering of cameras for the VPP system, however, one is unlikely to need to use any other cameras – but there is the choice.

Compatibility is the norm

The modern observation system offers better performance and more sophisticated functions for users

It also doesn’t make much sense any more to worry about getting stuck with proprietary technology when the market has matured so much in terms of inter-connectivity – compatibility is the norm now, not the exception, certainly when you are buying from the major international manufacturers.

The ‘cherry picking’ argument doesn’t really make sense any more either – it’s no longer automatically cheaper to buy individual product items and marry them together.

If installers have time on their hands, then maybe they can afford to stick with that way of buying – but if they’re looking at higher value sales with higher profit margins (made possible by the lower labour costs) and they want to impress with good product aesthetics too, then it will work out less expensive overall if they buy everything together.

The LCD monitors in the latest observation systems are as good as the industry’s best, but if you buy them separately they’ll cost you a lot more. In both office and retail environments the neat, clean lines of these new monitors make an important good impression. Such visual appeal matters much more now than in the past.

There is much excitement in the security industry about IP surveillance, but that particular debate will mean little or nothing to your average SME buyer. However, tell them that as an added benefit of upgrading to a new observation system they can now watch their shop or office on their home PC and receive alarms out of hours, and they’ll certainly be interested.

For the installer it’s simply done by connecting an inexpensive web-box; another example of the flexibility and future-proof qualities of the best new systems.

Changing market position

The observation system is changing its position in the market. In the past these kits simply fell between two stools – they weren’t cheap, but they weren’t the most sophisticated either. They were mid-market products at a time when the middle market didn’t really exist. But now the market has changed and the gap has been closed.

First, with products like the VPP, the quality has gone up in a big way, but the price has stayed frozen mid-market.

At the same time, buyer attitudes have been changing and customers are moving to the mid-market level too. The first and second generation of buyers in the retail and SME sectors (those who previously bought cheaper systems) are ready to be upgraded. The ‘home PC’ revolution has changed attitudes and most people are now comfortable with IT and multimedia technology which steadily improves.

So customers are now more receptive to an offering of something which is significantly better than they bought before - and, with the latest smart observation systems, installers can offer them a CCTV solution that is suddenly very affordable and also extremely flexible, and perhaps most importantly of all, quick and simple to install.