Remote monitoring - from required recording to live control

Remote monitoring in retail has changed what a camera is for. Not long ago, CCTV was a comfort blanket, there because the store specification said so, and looked at only after an incident to retrieve the footage. Now retailers are networking up their cameras to watch stores in real time, and even to talk to them. In this episode of Sell More Lose Less, Colin Peacock is joined by Professor Emmeline Taylor, fresh from a two-day ECR meeting with 50 to 60 retailers, to unpack where remote monitoring is heading.

It starts with a question Professor Adrian Beck put to retailers nearly ten years ago: why have you got video? Back then, few had a clear answer. Today, remote monitoring centres, also called security operations centres, crime centres or intelligence hubs, are pulling video, alarms, panic buttons and alerts into one place, with 24-hour oversight of stores spread across the country. Emmeline argues the single word that defines a good centre is integration. Colin and Emmeline cover the split between proactive monitoring and reactive evidence gathering, why communicating back into store is still the weak link, and the case for these centres becoming tools for the whole business, from self-checkout monitoring to virtual store audits. It connects to ECR work on retail CCTV strategy, video in retail, and our earlier conversation on security operations centres.

Remote monitoring in retail: the full conversation

From comfort blanket to proactive video

COLIN:

Welcome to the Sell More, Lose Less podcast. We bring these podcasts to touch on, and discuss briefly with academics and guests, key topics in retail loss and security. Today we’re talking with Professor Emmeline Taylor about the more proactive use of CCTV, or IP video, in retail. As retailers network up all their cameras, they can start to see what’s going on in their stores in real time, and, as we’ll discuss, they can even talk to the stores and the stores can talk back.

This all started with a great report from Adrian Beck nearly ten years ago, where he went to retailers and asked a simple question: why have you got video? Why have you got CCTV? He got a lot of silence. Often it was because CCTV had been seen as a comfort blanket. We need it there because that’s what the store specification said, and we use it when we’ve had an incident to retrieve the information. But for the last eight years or so, we’ve been bringing together retailers who want a more proactive use of video. We’ve just come back fresh from a two-day meeting where 50 or 60 retailers joined us, and Emmeline was there to facilitate. So, Emmeline, as you get into this world of remote monitoring centres, what are you picking up in terms of the key themes, the problems, and the things coming over the horizon?

EMMELINE:

It’s such a fascinating area, and that’s because it’s developing at such a fast pace. We heard examples of security operations centres that were hugely varied, but the one thing they have in common is one word: integration. It’s about how they integrate all the different video streams, alarms, alerts and panic buttons into one centralised hub. That enables retailers with stores across large, geographically dispersed areas to have oversight of what’s happening in each of them, with 24-hour live surveillance plugging into the CCTV, the body-worn cameras and so on. For me, it’s how they then bring together all these streams of data to respond quickly, effectively and appropriately back into those stores, to de-escalate situations, highlight if somebody is coming into the store who perhaps shouldn’t be, and support the staff on the ground. There were so many interesting conversations about not only what’s happening now, but what is possible. We had a presenter from the USA with probably one of the most sophisticated operating centres in the world. It was fascinating, wasn’t it?

COLIN:

It really was. As you say, these remote monitoring centres are very common now, but they still don’t have a common name. Sometimes they’re called crime centres. What other names did you hear?

EMMELINE:

Intelligence hubs.

COLIN:

Yes, there you go.

EMMELINE:

All sorts. They’ve got lots of different names, and internationally they’re called different things, aren’t they?

Proactive monitoring versus reactive evidence

COLIN:

And some are huge. One retailer in our group has 120 or 130 people, and some are a bit smaller. Broadly, they have two modes of operation: reactive, things like digital evidence management and gathering, or proactive, monitoring a live incident. What are you picking up on those different use cases? Shall we start with the proactive ones?

EMMELINE:

The proactive use is really about providing extra support to in-store staff, who might not have the capacity, training or experience to deal with some quite high-level incidents. Let’s say an armed robbery. It also takes out the emotion or the fear in the moment. The operating centre will be alerted, through a panic button, various alarms, or a call. It enables staff to alert law enforcement, to talk to the people in the store, and to walk them through it. So the centre and store staff are seen as a supportive resource, and staff really welcome that engagement. In terms of reactive, it’s much easier to put data points on the reactive responses, because you can measure the number of police call-outs, arrests, prosecutions, and the evidence you’ve compiled. That’s much easier to communicate than events that never occurred because you intervened. So weighing up proactive and reactive, the centres that are most effective are doing both.

COLIN:

Yes, and we heard that from the USA retailer, that they’re overlapping the people doing those different tasks. At three o’clock in the morning, there might not be much to do proactively, all the stores are asleep, but you can still do the reactive work, the digital evidence management, or building cases against organised retail crime. Now, you talked about communication. What did you mean by communication?

The weak link: communicating back into store

EMMELINE:

These security operations centres, when done properly, are an exemplar of the sophisticated technology available to retail: next-generation body-worn cameras, headsets, live facial recognition. There are all these streams of data landing in these remote centres, ready to be analysed and acted upon. Now, where I’m seeing a slight friction is how they then communicate back into store. Some of them literally have to pick up a phone. Well, what if nobody answers? Or they’re paging a member of staff. It almost feels slightly jarring. So that’s perhaps where we need to see more activity. How do we have two-way communication that is seamless, that runs smoothly and that is in real time, because that’s the whole point of these centres. For me, that communication is really key, and perhaps hasn’t quite been worked out in some examples.

COLIN:

Yes. The security operations centres are typically owned by the security team, with the help of IT. But there’s a business part that’s also really keen, especially about reducing shrink, operational expenses and improving compliance. So I see a tension between the two. I’d probably be in the camp that these need to become business tools, a resource for the whole business, not only to manage the crowds that might spill into stores during a riot or a big march, but also operational things. Looking over self-checkouts and spotting people mis-scanning. Or doing audits remotely, rather than sending in a physical person, to audit how tidy the back room is, what a car park looks like, and whether people are following processes. I can see many more use cases emerging, and the whole piece around slips and falls and compliance. So over time I think security will take the lead, but I’m hoping these become broader operational centres.

Beyond crime: the whole-business case

EMMELINE:

Absolutely, and there are some great examples. I visited one in Europe that was just incredible, for the breadth of activity within those four walls. We talked about stores in geographically disparate locations, and those stores may present with different issues. You can go in with the security lens, but you can also broaden it out, because what might be an issue for one store might never be a problem in another. You might have one location managing civil unrest that suddenly flared up, and another with a heatwave, where we know we’re going to have increased antisocial behaviour. Some of the more sophisticated ones also oversee deliveries, where there might be a vulnerability around the back of store, to make sure there’s no vulnerability from criminal networks trying to infiltrate. Or monitoring an alarm that’s going off, so the store manager doesn’t get dragged out of bed at four in the morning only to find a fox has got onto the premises. In the UK, we seem to be overwhelmingly looking at it from a crime and security perspective, but other countries are using this in a much more holistic way.

COLIN:

Yes. I remember visiting that one with you, and it was amazing. Executive travel, keeping an eye on executives as they flew around the country, and the trucks and logistics. Plus live feeds on social media to understand whether there was something locally going on. I remember at the start of this journey, one of the security directors, an American senior vice president of security, got called into his CEO’s office about three years ago. The CEO showed him a screen and said, look, I can see this panda here, in a Chinese zoo, brushing its hair. How can I not see my stores? From that, they built out an amazing remote monitoring centre. I wonder whether we’ll look back in five years’ time and say, what do you mean you haven’t got one of these, you can’t see your stores?

EMMELINE:

It’s a brilliant point, isn’t it?

COLIN:

Yes. For me, if I was the CEO and there was something going wrong in the stores, an incident, floods or whatever, to be able to see the store before the local news reporter gets in there and tells you what they think is going on is invaluable. In terms of brand reputation, it could save your stock price plunging by 20 or 30%, because you’re not seen to be out of control of your store. So these have got broad business application. The communications are still in the growing stages. But the cohorts of retailers we’ve got around the table, global players, I think a hundred retailers in this group, certainly seem to enjoy it. They certainly seem to enjoy your retail risk model, which is coming up next.

EMMELINE:

Coming soon. That’ll be hot off the press before we know it.

COLIN:

Again, it’s something else that could be plugged in and thought about in terms of your security operations. But thank you so much, Emmeline. I really appreciate your insights. We’ll no doubt return and speak to you soon about retail risk models.

EMMELINE:

Thanks, Colin. Great to see you.

COLIN:

Take care. Bye-bye.