Ava Security market study reveals surge in demand for video analytics

This is arguably the most significant finding of the security industry’s first multi-national study of COVID-19 video monitoring system usage and upgrade impacts. Questionnaires were sent to these decision-makers last month when many of them were in the midst of making final arrangements for the safe return of staff to organisations’ offices and work premises in due course.

In the US, 90% of respondents can see a role for video monitoring systems in supporting a safe return to the office, while that percentage falls to 72% in the UK and averages 94% across Norway and Sweden.

Ava Security’s research has also uncovered an acceleration in the cloud migration of IT services which looks set to positively impact Video Surveillance-as-a-Service (VSaaS) adoption. Nearly four out of every five US firms (ie 79%) have already accelerated their cloud migration plans during the pandemic. More than half of those have managed to secure an increased IT budget in financial year 2020-2021 to underpin the movement of additional services into the cloud.

Here in the UK, over half (51%) of respondents have accelerated cloud migration of services over the last year, again with over half of those already benefitting from increased budgets to complete cloud migration projects.

Sweden and Norway together exhibit an average of 84% of respondents seeing an acceleration of the cloud migration of services, with over two-thirds of this group confirming that new budget had already been assigned to this activity.

VSaaS demand led by US

Over three-quarters (76%) of US firms with video monitoring systems regard VSaaS migration as a ‘net high priority’ (marking it as either ‘high priority’ or ‘somewhat a priority’). That percentage is even higher across Norway and Sweden’s respondents (at 90%). In the UK, VSaaS adoption is favoured by just over half (51%) of security system decision-makers.

Ava Security has also revealed that four out of every five businesses captured in its multi-national study predict an increase in the remote monitoring of assets, processes and people on their work premises over the next 12 months.

There’s no doubt that the spike in demand for the remote management of systems and premises is set to continue apace. 78% of those firms questioned predict it to be likely that they will increase their remote management capability over the next 12 months. That figure is slightly higher in the US (at 83%) and only slightly lower in the UK (at 72%).

Ava Security’s study also uncovered the fact that 79% of firms have declared it likely that their organisation would accelerate the migration of IT applications into the cloud over the next 12 months. Further, the study finds that 80% of firms predict an increased focus on cyber security for all networked devices and applications across the next year.

Vegard Aas, head of online business at Ava Security, commented: “Increased demand for the remote management of IT systems is naturally feeding through to demand for cloud-based IT services as those running systems focus their attentions on the speed of access to data, as well as increased cyber security to protect network infrastructure.”

Deeper integration with access control

The foremost priority for improving and optimising existing video monitoring systems on both sides of the Atlantic is to integrate them better with other security-related systems, such as access control or alarm systems. Nearly four out of every five system owners (ie 79%) questioned consider this to be a high priority for improvement.

The next highest priority (jointly) for 77% of system owners is improving their ‘system resilience and back-up systems and procedures’ as well as ‘General Data Protection Regulation compliance procedures’ surrounding video monitoring/CCTV systems.

People counting (including room capacity monitoring) is the most heavily deployed smart analytics tool right now on both sides of the Atlantic. Across all four countries captured by the Ava Security study, the average deployment of people counting stands at 43% of video systems. A further 32% of firms plan to deploy this video analytics capability in workplaces within the next 12 months.

In the US, 54% of video system owners have already deployed people counting in their systems, whereas adoption is higher again in Norway and Sweden combined at 62%, although much lower in the UK (at just 29%).

People crowd density analytics runs a close second in terms of video analytics adoption, no doubt stimulated by COVID-19 safety requirements. Indeed, 39% of organisations have already deployed this capability within their video surveillance systems.

The US leads in terms of crowd density analytics usage with 57% of firms there using it, whereas a little less than half (44%) of Sweden and Norway-based video monitoring system owners have crowd density analytics capability. Only a quarter (26%) of UK system owners have deployed crowd density analytics to date.  However, the UK is set to see a more than doubling of crowd density analytics deployments: 29% of system owners plan to deploy this capability within their video monitoring systems over the next 12 months.

ANPR analytics user base

Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) has witnessed similar levels of deployment: 35% of system owners across all countries captured by this study have so far deployed ANPR. Sweden and Norway together lead with an average deployment of ANPR between them of 52%. In the US, that number is only slightly lower at 43%. Again, the UK’s adoption of ANPR analytics lags at a quarter (25%) of those system owners who participated in the survey.

ANPR analytics, the study findings suggest, are set to see a rapidly increased take-up, in some cases with the technology doubling in terms of market penetration over the next 12 months. In the US, a further 43% of users are set to add ANPR analytics for relevant surveillance cameras over the next 12 months, whereas in the UK an additional 22% plan to install ANPR capability into their existing CCTV systems by March of next year.

Vegard Aas confirmed: “Our new study reveals a plethora of changes focused on the increased take-up of remote management and cloud-based IT services which all bodes well for the accelerating adoption of VSaaS. Managers running video monitoring systems are looking for greater functionality which the next generation of video analytics can now deliver. Specific video analytics, such as crowd density and room capacity analytics, are enjoying a COVID-linked uplift in demand.”

He added: “Security system owners are also clearly looking for tighter cyber security when it comes to video data. They also want more timely access to that data from wherever they are to help drive faster and smarter decision-making.”

Ava Security recently launched its Cloud Connector offering to enable video security system owners easy and cost-effective transition of video security solutions to the cloud. This brings Ava’s advanced real-time analytics and proactive security to existing surveillance cameras by integrating with the open Aware Cloud platform.

Ava’s Cloud Connector eliminates the need to rip out and replace existing video security devices and equipment such that end users can directly reap the cost and operational efficiencies of a true cloud-based service.