More Than Analytics
Small business owners look for tools to improve productivity
- By David Klein
- Apr 01, 2013
It is common sense that high-end fashion boutiques
need security cameras. Like any brick-and-mortar
business, and particularly one with exclusive items,
it’s critical to reduce shrink and manage liability. Security
cameras help keep customers safe by deterring
violent criminals and minimizing the likelihood of employee
theft or fraud.
It may be less than obvious to small business owners
that surveillance video also contains valuable business intelligence
that may improve their businesses. Although video
analytics have been around for years in various forms,
they haven’t always been easy to use, or economical, at
least not for a small business owner.
That’s what Steve Russell, founder and CEO of Prism
Skylabs, had in mind when he started the company. As the
former founder and CEO of 3VR, Russell knows about
surveillance and analytics.
“There is powerful information hidden within video,
but extracting and understanding it can be difficult and
time-consuming,” Russell said. “Prism excels at distilling
important insights and presenting them in ways that are
visually stunning and easy to understand.”
Once a business downloads Prism’s cloud-based service,
the tool automatically identifies and connects with
the existing video cameras and video management systems
in the store. The service helps businesses of all sizes, such
as retailers, grocers and restaurants, easily run a suite of
analytics. For example, business owners can measure customer
counts, dwell time and movement. Beyond that, they
can measure product lift, understand long-term trends and
estimate crowd size in any location or environment. Rather
than creating data reports and spreadsheets that can be
difficult to understand, Prism Skylabs does something
completely different: it creates visualizations of the data
that can be understood by anyone—whether the CEO of
a Fortune 500 company or the owner of a mom-and-pop
grocery store.
Just ask Sunhee Moon, fashion designer, small business
owner and store manager for her eponymous boutique
women’s clothing stores in San Francisco.
Better than Video
For a small business owner like Moon, who is busy running
her stores, managing inventory, designing clothing
and purchasing fabric, there’s no time to watch video. But
as a savvy business owner, she’s always on the look-out for
new tools to help manage her stores.
“I heard about Prism from my neighbor, and I was instantly
intrigued,” she said.
With Prism’s software, she found answers to key questions:
“Was the store open on time?” or “Is the store
clean?” But that’s not all. Even more powerful data is
hidden within the pixels and streams. Moon can answer
questions like: “What products do customers pick up the most?” “How long are people waiting on line?” “Which area of the store do customers prefer to spend time in?”
“I use the software every day,” Moon said. “I use it to help me determine where
I should put my displays and merchandise; I use it to make sure my staffing levels
are perfect; and I use it to make sure my store looks great when I am on the road.”
Moon is one of the software developer’s earliest customers and staunchest
advocates.
“It’s an incredible tool,” she said. “I used to have no idea about which side of
the store my customers preferred or how many people were in my store at any
given time. I now get the information I need to better run my business. Their reports,
all of which use aggregate data and protect the privacy of my customers,
really help me out.”
“Prism is about getting insights to the people who need them whenever wherever
they are,” said Russell. “We’ve built an application powerful enough for business
owners to answer important questions, but also simple and mobile enough for
everyday use by their teams.”
Immediate Setup
As a cloud service, the software solution can be up and running in minutes, a
valuable feature for small business owners. No expensive truck pulls in or tricky
integrations are required. Prism runs on Linux, Mac and Windows, and on 3VR,
Exacq and Milestone products.
“It took me about 20 minutes to get it working,” Moon said. “I downloaded the
software and it automatically found the cameras in my store. It took me a couple
of hours to really understand all the features, but once I got going, it changed the
way I run my business.”
Business owners are now able to remotely look into their stores—in real-time—
from wherever they are and on virtually any device. Owners can zoom in on any
aisle, shelf, display or store and view enhanced, detailed images from a smartphone,
laptop or tablet.
“It’s pretty amazing,” Moon said. “I no longer have to be inside one of my
stores to ensure that everything looks right. I call my employees and talk about
our displays and mannequins, all of which I can see on my iPad. Then I use the
analytics to understand customer patterns and trends, and talk with my employees
about how to best arrange our merchandise.”
How it Works
From a security or loss prevention perspective, images and data are stored in the
cloud for any length of time. It is a redundant archive for DVRs, cameras and
hard drives that can only hold so much information or could be broken, stolen or
destroyed.
Rather than streaming video, Prism creates visualizations and storyboards of
customer activity and uses HDR-style technology, such as noise reduction, dynamic
range adjustment and super resolution, to create the best possible image
from the existing infrastructure. Through computer vision and computational
photography, customers and employees can be removed from these images to give
retailers like Moon uninhibited and privacy-protected remote access to their merchandise.
“There’s a lot of new technology coming out for retailers, and
no one knows what things are going to be like in the next couple
of years,” she said.
This article originally appeared in the April 2013 issue of Security Today.