Watching Store Operations

Monitoring retail store employees using video-surveillance techniques is already a well-established practice. These black-and-white closed-circuit television (CCTV) systems are typically limited to recording what goes on in a few camera views. Only after an actual crime has been committed, or in cases where a rise in store shrinkage would those tapes ever be analyzed. Why? Watching an in-store videotape for hours on end would otherwise be a complete waste of time.

Today, using videotape, video searching is done by eyeballs scanning time codes and choosing camera locations (e.g., show me yesterday afternoon's tape of the cash register). The current operation mode of "let's just capture it and hope the camera presence alone is the deterrent" no longer suffices. Retail store owners are now demanding better service from their employees and zero loss due to shrinkage. From the point of view of the retailer, far more value can be gained using wireless, digitized video beyond simply being a theft deterrent.

Imagine a "Google for video" capability. For example, a store owner could query the system to find only video clips that have "moving people with hats on." Or "parents with children in tow." The system would then return only those clips for viewing in a matter of minutes. Sophisticated new software, using algorithms for image processing, will come from both commercial vendors and the open-source community to help simplify and automate much of the monitoring operations and to derive new automated metrics (e.g., how often Clerk Jane spends assisting shoppers in a given isle). To start, the data must be captured and stored. Much like having 10 years of x-ray data amassed, at any time in the future re-analysis can take place on this accumulated gold mine. Perhaps a new software technique for matching people on repeat visits will become available and reveal some additional tidbit of shopping behavior that the retailer can exploit.

Monitoring could also be done more effectively by service bureaus monitoring many remote stores from centralized locations, resulting in the birth of a new industry: retail video management as an outsourced business, much like payroll is outsourced. Today, many homes and businesses outsource their security to some remote monitoring firm. Monitoring firms can now tap new retail markets where theft and security issues are just as prevalent. This is somewhat akin to the remote monitoring of intensive-care units (ICUs) now being used by some hospitalshaving an expert on staff at all times for all locations but cost-leveraged through volume.