9 Key Features of a Commercial Security Camera System

As a business owner/operator, your challenges are as varied as the businesses out there. But, regardless of whether you operate a quick service restaurant, clothing boutique, gym franchise, jewelry store, or “fill in the blank,” you do have a few commonalities. Primarily, you want to provide staff and visitors with the safest environment possible, plus continuously improve efficiencies and generate more revenue. Did you know a cloud-based commercial security system can help you accomplish all of the above?  

To gain a better understanding of how, check out our Video Security Primer. You’ll learn about the nine key video management system (VMS) features you need to secure and grow your unique business, as well as the questions to ask when evaluating security providers.   

Here’s a sneak peek at the nine key elements of a modern security camera system: 

1. Cloud: A true cloud system offers a multitude of benefits to businesses, including lower cost and maintenance, cybersecurity, scalability, and anywhere access.

2. Camera Flexibility: Your VMS vendor should offer you flexibility to choose either their proprietary cameras, or to use the cameras you already have in place.
3. Ease of Use: Business owners need a security system that’s easy to install and configure; with single sign-on, attractive and intuitive interface, storage retention flexibility, and on-the-fly camera sharing; plus multisite viewing and central management capabilities.

4. Cybersecurity: Make sure your security camera system vendor offers constant monitoring against cyber threats, and your system has strong encryptions, no open ports or onsite firewalls, triple-redundant storage, and two-factor authentication.

5. Total Cost of Ownership: Moving your computing and video storage infrastructure to the cloud results in a total cost of ownership considerably below a typical onsite system. The savings generally range between 20 and 50 percent compared to costs for hosting the VMS applications in a corporate data center (whether in-house or third-party operated). 

6. Bandwidth Management: Your video surveillance system vendor should build tools into the system to help you deal with the reality of bandwidth limitations and unpredictability.

7. More than Just Security: Artificial Intelligence (AI) for video surveillance uses software applications to analyze the audio and video from cameras to recognize humans, objects, vehicles, events, and more. In other words, AI can turn your video security system into a powerful tool for business optimization. 

8.  Service and Support: Avoid partnering with a video surveillance provider that’s all about the sale and not the service. Instead, you want to align with a vendor that will actively monitor your cameras and system to verify continuous operation and cybersecurity.

9. Innovation and Future-Proof Development: You want to ensure your system is future-ready; one that gives you the power to innovate at scale and keep pace with continuous feature and AI enhancements delivered in the cloud.

For a deep dive into these nine key video security system elements, and much more, download Best Practices Guide: Video Security Primer.