Europe set for surge in advanced video technology deployment

The study is based on existing IDC research, including IDC digital transformation and software-focused research, data from IDC’s Worldwide Spending Guides and conversations conducted with solution vendors and buyers alike. IDC also carried out a dedicated video technologies-centric survey, interviewing individuals from C-Suites in no less than 320 European and UAE organisations across four vertical markets: Government, healthcare, Critical National Infrastructure and transportation.

Over the next 24 months, the majority (ie 84%) of European and UAE organisations surveyed plan to deploy advanced video technologies such as video analytics and sensor information. 26% of the organisations interviewed plan to establish a video technology platform centrally, which would then be connected to other systems.

Come the end of this year, organisations around the globe expect to have spent £150 million on video surveillance analytics, with transportation and logistics as well as Critical National Infrastructure being the sectors exhibiting the most advanced level of maturity in terms of video technology usage.

Among the key capabilities required over the next three-to-five years, buyers questioned have highlighted process automation, facial recognition, smart analytics, Artificial Intelligence and centralised cloud-driven deployment.

Application of video

The research also unearths key findings in relation to industry plans, challenges and opportunities when it comes to video technology investments.

Technology developments in Artificial Intelligence, image processing, cloud computing and sensors are rapidly expanding organisations’ application of video and sensor technology and the business outcomes they deliver.

“Video technologies are moving from a pure ‘insurance’ and security purpose to a real business differentiator,” explained Malou Toft, vice-president for the EMEA region at Milestone Systems.

Bo Lykkegaard, associate vice-president of European software research at IDC Europe, added: “The bottom line is that businesses and public institutions are actively planning for and expecting new technologies to be deployed with video analytics solutions in order to enable a wider set of advanced use cases to be delivered. These new use cases can help enterprises deliver new digital experiences, generate digital revenues or drive greater operational efficiencies and, ultimately, allow them to remain competitive in the new digital economy.”

Investments and planning

When it comes to video technology investments and plans, three key stakeholders are to the fore: security, technology and operations leads.

When asked about business challenges related to video technologies, business leaders focused on two in particular: privacy protection and security compliance concerns.

While those organisations surveyed appear to have plenty of planned video technology projects with business cases in place, such projects can be somewhat inhibited by concerns around possible missteps relating to privacy and security.

“This demonstrates that privacy and security risk mitigation should always be key activities when building a business case to apply advanced video technologies,” observed Malou Toft. “Organisations should be careful and always select the technology and service providers who adhere to the highest cyber security and privacy protection standards.”