NW Security launches full report based on extensive CCTV study findings

The 36-page report reveals that England is poised to become an early and rapid adopter of cloud CCTV, exploring in some detail precisely why 58% of those firms captured in the survey of CCTV system users are planning to migrate their existing surveillance systems to the cloud by September this year. Among private sector businesses, more than two-thirds (71%, in fact) of CCTV users are actively considering the migration of their video systems to the cloud.

One of the key reasons for the strong appetite for ‘Cloud CCTV’ migration is that, although the UK was late in moving to network video from traditional analogue-based CCTV because of its widespread adoption of CCTV more than 25 years ago, the CCTV-to-network video ‘tipping point’ has finally been reached across all sectors. The study found that 61% of England-based medium and large-sized businesses now operate network video monitoring systems rather than traditional analogue-based CCTV systems.

NW Security’s report also plots the increase in demand for cloud-based CCTV as part of the wider acceleration of cloud migration plans in response to COVID-19. The global pandemic has created a rapid increase in demand for access to corporate IT applications and management information systems on a remote basis as so many people have necessarily spent most of their working weeks operating away from the traditional workplace.

Cloud CCTV demand certainly fits with wider cloud migration plans which have been accelerated in response to COVID-19. Some 42% of all medium and large-sized businesses admitted that their ‘cloud migration plans are being accelerated in 2020-2021 because of COVID-19’. A further 34% have increased their budgets to put more IT services and applications into the cloud following the outbreak of the pandemic.

Three-quarters (76%) of all firms that completed NW Security’s online survey confirmed that they had accelerated cloud migration plans as a result of the pandemic.

In-house control

Perhaps one of the more surprising findings is the fact that one third of all businesses’ CCTV systems captured in NW Security’s study are still run by in-house security or FM departments. However, now that more CCTV systems are networked than not, and cloud CCTV migration is being actively considered by over half of organisations this year, NW Security believes that IT departments will end up in charge of much more than a quarter (27% to be precise) of video monitoring systems within the next couple of years.

In the report, Frank Crouwel (managing director of NW Security) comments: “Many IT managers are being forced to take a deeper interest [in CCTV systems] now that the technology and security installer partner capability is available to upgrade and improve surveillance operations, potentially moving them up into the cloud and exploring Artificial Intelligence-driven video analytics capabilities which will be supplied as standard in the next generation of CCTV systems.”

Somewhat surprisingly, NW Security’s study revealed that only 10% of today’s surveillance systems are supported by an external CCTV/network video specialist installer. Yet, with so much new technology coming in so quickly and the pressure to migrate video monitoring into the cloud growing, deeper partnerships with external experts harbouring combined pools of IT networking, cloud migration and professional security expertise are likely to gain ground.

Confirming first-hand experience of this partnership approach, Crouwel observed: “We’re seeing more businesses looking for help from expert partners when it comes to the improvement and optimisation of CCTV systems to ensure those businesses are receiving optimal value from their existing systems.”

NW Security firmly believes that the CCTV market is undergoing fundamental change and plans to investigate the implications of that change in a second study that the business will run later this year.

*Copies of NW Security’s full report are available to download for free by accessing this link: https://www.nwsystemsgroup.com/our-company/report-preparing-for-the-next-generation-of-cctv-systems