Approaches for Designing a Video Surveillance System for Business Operations

The old model of surveillance was reactive: record, review, respond. Businesses and institutions have historically considered video surveillance systems more as insurance products than critical business systems.  Today, AI-powered systems have changed the landscape.  Modern video surveillance systems are proactive and predictive. They analyze behavior, flag anomalies, and surface patterns that would otherwise go unnoticed. In retail, that might mean identifying high-traffic zones to optimize product placement. In manufacturing, it could be monitoring PPE compliance or detecting workflow bottlenecks. The point is: video is no longer just about security, it’s about strategy.

Is it time for you to modernize your video surveillance system?

Collaboration is Key

Before we move any further, I must stress the importance of relationships. Today’s video surveillance systems are complex, ever-changing, and often integrated with numerous systems.  Without wisdom from varied perspectives, will likely make expensive mistakes and will certainly fail to optimize the return on your investment.  I encourage you to build trusted relationships with people to help you design, implement, maintain, and improve your system over the long term.

Who should be on your team?

The most successful relationships we have built include the following stakeholders:

• End User Stakeholders:
  • Executive: This person focuses on business cases associated with investments, makes final decisions, and holds the team accountable for achieving results.
  • Sales, Marketing, and Operations: If you're going to move beyond security, you must involve non-traditional stakeholders.  Representatives from other departments in your organization will assist in understanding the pains the video surveillance system can resolve and the opportunities the system can capture.
  •  Procurement: This person will assist in buying what you need per your organization’s regulations and standards. 
  • IT: Modern video surveillance systems are complex IT systems.  This person handles design, system architecture, devices, and software.  This person is often helped by an IT team with various specialties, including but not limited to:
    • Cybersecurity
    • Network/switching/routing
    • Cabling systems
    • Server/storage
    • Cloud services
    • Workstations
    • Audio/Visual systems
  • Security: This person handles system operation, training and monitoring users, testing and commissioning system functionality, and regularly checking system status.
  • Facilities: This person handles physical installation standards, maintenance of devices, and coordination with supporting systems such as electrical, elevator, door hardware, etc.
• Vendor Stakeholders:
  • Security Integrator(s): Security integrators see many systems across many customers.  They can provide valuable insight into pitfalls, savings, and creative use cases.
  • Manufacturers(s): These are the subject matter experts who can help you choose the right technologies to achieve your purposes, optimize features, and even shape future products to meet your needs.
  • Distributor(s): Do not miss their value; distributors can negotiate favorable pricing with manufacturers, plan logistics to support project delivery and future service needs and provide financial support to both security integrators and end users in the form of payment terms.
  • Consultants/architects/engineers: This group, like security integrators, has a wealth of experience across numerous systems, end users, and vertical markets.  Their core business is giving great advice.

How Do You Choose Vendors? 

As you evaluate vendors, do not get mesmerized by the technology.  You should certainly consider hardware and software capabilities and features, but there are many other, non-technology questions vendors should answer for you.  They include:

·         Who owns the company and what is their desired outcome? This will determine where the vendor will be in the years to come.

• How financially stable is the company?
• As a percentage of your revenue, how much do you spend on research and development?  This will assess their investment in the future.
• How will you learn about our business so that you can help us most effectively?
• How often are you willing to meet with us, especially during implementation?
• What team handles servicing our organization through the entire lifecycle, from sales to projects to service?
• How do you handle data privacy and compliance?
• How do you address cybersecurity?  Do you have a hardening guideline?
• What kind of support and training services are available?
• How can we tailor the system to our needs?  What integrations are available now?  What integrations are on your roadmap?  What is the process of getting an integration done? Should we find a new one we want?
• Do you have design tools that will help us make better product selections?

You Must Talk Money

Money is a key component of your relationship with vendors.  The healthiest relationships openly discuss it.  You must make financially sound decisions for your organization.  Vendors have a responsibility to operate their businesses profitably.  You must find the balance between the two.  At a minimum, negotiate pricing structures, invoice processes, payment terms, and how we will work through the financial impacts of inevitable changes.  Do not forget to involve your procurement representative in these negotiations.

And, yes, there are vendors out there who are not focused on getting as much money from you as they can in the easiest possible way.  If trust is absent from vendor relationships, find different vendors. 

Start with the Why

Now that you've your team, it is time to stop and think.

Before you specify a single camera, get clear on your objectives.  Conduct a Vision Workshop with your stakeholder team to define your “whys” for the system.  Paint a picture of what you want the system to be at a future date.  Get as detailed as possible.  Resist the urge to discuss the mechanics of the system or how you will deliver the project.  Establishing your vision for the system and translating that vision into specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals is enough for this workshop.

Here are some questions that will guide you to your vision:

• Who will operate the system?
• How will operators interface the system?
• What do operators need to see to be effective?
• Who will administer the system?
• How will the administrators interface with the system?
• What do administrators need to see to be effective?
• What do I or an analytics software need to see to inform our operational workflows?
• What do I or an analytic software need to see to enhance safety?
• What do I or analytics software need to see to enhance our customer experience?  Pro Tip: Talk to your customers!  Ask them what friction they experience when doing business with you.
• What are some aspects of our organization that I would love to observe but have never had the opportunity to see?
• What operational processes, safety risks, or customer experience issues generate the most complaints or frustrations?  Would being able to see them in real time help?  What automation or analytics would help mitigate or even eliminate the issue without human intervention?
• What are pervasive, repetitive tasks that require little human skill or expertise?  Can we use video and AI to make those tasks easier or faster?  For example, instead of associates checking inventory on shelves a couple of times daily, can cameras with AI keep track of inventory in real time, build restocking plans for associates, and even place orders with vendors to restock the shelves?

Determine the Value

I am a geek at heart; I love technology.  I must fight the urge to buy technology just because it's cool.  So should you.  Keep an investor mindset.  Your purchase of video surveillance technology should provide a return several times as large as your investment. 

Another workshop I highly recommend is a Value Determination Workshop.  This meeting is for internal stakeholders only.  The goal is to assign a dollar amount to the value the video surveillance system will bring to your organization when you achieve your vision.  Keep the numbers at a high level, not to the penny.  Consider what risks the system will reduce or eliminate, what expenses the system will reduce or eliminate, and what additional revenue the system will create. 

Time to Design

You may not feel highly productive at this point, but the time you've taken to stop and think will pay incredible dividends.

Design Workshop

The next step is to bring all stakeholders together for a Design Workshop.  Depending on the size and complexity of your organization, this might be one meeting or several.  You may even need to segregate the workshop into separate committees.  Whatever the size or structure, this process will take time and require hard work.  Frame your mindset accordingly.  Your goal is to finish the Design Workshop with the following products:

1.  Vision Narrative: Articulate what you desire the system to be at a future date.  Use declarative language and incorporate your goals.  For example, “The system will monitor traffic flows throughout our campus and automatically trigger, direct, and track standard operating procedures to help our guard force rapidly respond to full parking lots and traffic jams.”

2.  Design Narrative: Describe your design philosophies, high-level architecture, and product choices. What will your system look like?

3.  Scope Narrative: Outline what you're accomplishing with the project.  What is included?  What is not included? Explicit scopes with clear assumptions result in accurate pricing, minimal surprises, and more enjoyable projects.

4.  Drawings: Drawings are a visual representation of your scope.  Like great scopes, great drawings improve pricing, reduce change orders, and optimize efficiencies.

5.  Specifications: These are the standards to which you hold your vendors accountable.  Leverage your procurement team, consultants, architects, engineers, and manufacturers for specifications. 

6.  Preliminary Project Schedule: Develop a high-level project schedule with key dates and milestones.  Add margin to the schedule to minimize the impacts of changes and forces beyond your control.

7.  Contract Documents: All relationships have healthy boundaries.  Your contracts with vendors define the relational boundaries between buyers and sellers.  Make sure your contracts clearly define your expectations and adequately govern activities throughout the system lifecycle.

8.  Request for Proposal (RFP) Documents: If your organization’s procurement policies require the bidding process, combine the products previously listed into a clear, comprehensive RFP.  Make sure you give vendors adequate time to respond.  Pro Tip: Our best projects and healthiest relationships are with end users who do not use the RFP process for all projects and service contracts.  Work with your procurement professionals to determine if you can safely, fairly, and effectively create multi-year agreements with vendors. 

Key Considerations

Your system will be unique. So, I can't tell you where to put what software is best for you, what system architecture to use, or what AI tools will enhance your system.  I can, however, offer you several considerations that will improve your design.

Use Manufacturer Design Tools: Ask manufacturers if they offer design tools for their products.  Many manufacturers have robust design tools for cameras, server and storage selection, security operations center furniture layouts, and more. 

Test Lab/Pilot Facility: Modern video surveillance systems are critical business systems that continuously evolve.  Treat them as such.  We recommend building test environments, labs, and even pilot facilities that will allow you to test products and software before you move them into production.  Ask your IT professionals how they manage existing business systems.  It may be as easy as doing what they do.

Don’t Place Cameras.  Engineer Camera Views: The quality of camera images will dictate how effective your system will be, mainly because analytics and AI tools depend upon those images.  All reputable camera manufacturers have great design tools.  There are quality design tools from third parties as well.  Take the time to engineer camera views.  Place cameras in the right locations to capture images with the correct fields of view, pixels per foot, light considerations, etc.

Infrastructure is Key…and Expensive:  Electrical power systems, low voltage cabling systems, servers, storage, and network switching get expensive quickly.  As you move through design, look for opportunities to optimize performance while minimizing infrastructure.  Maybe a quad-view camera can save you three cable runs, three network switch ports, and three camera licenses? 

Exhaust COTS Before Custom:  Custom integrations are expensive and risky.  Look for commercial, off-the-shelf products with existing integrations before spending time and money on customizations.  If you entertain custom, look for a 10x return on your investment in the customization.

Walk Through the Operator Interface: Work with your vendors to create a virtual environment or demonstration system.  Invite one or more of your operators to walk through routine, day-to-day operations with the manufacturers.  Walk through a few emergency events, too.  The information you glean through this process will help focus the design on the end results.  You will also get operators excited about what is to come.

On Premise, Cloud, or Hybrid: There are varied philosophies on on-premise, cloud, and hybrid architectures.  Marry your philosophy with what is available from vendors.  Keep an open mind and listen to dissenting opinions. 

System Lifecycle: Look at the system over the next decade.  What will the service and maintenance requirements be?  When will I need to upgrade system components?  When will I need a major system upgrade or replacement?

Do Not Forget Admins: Keeping your system in tip-top shape is as vital as operating it well.  Consider tools and technologies that will help systems administrators detect potential issues before they happen, automate responses, and streamline reporting.

Workflows and Automations: You likely spend a tremendous amount of time following normalized procedures.  When emergencies happen and emotions are high, following your standard operating procedures is vital.  Look for software that will automate workflows, guide operators during emergencies, improve accountability, and measure success.

Cybersecurity, Ethics, and Compliance: Do the right things.  Video surveillance with AI brings real benefits—but also real responsibilities.  Be transparent with employees and customers.  Collect only what you need.  Follow all applicable laws.  Make sure your AI tools are free from bias and misuse.  Protect these digital assets.  Trust is a competitive advantage. Please don’t risk it.

Final Thoughts

Designing a modern video surveillance system is not just another project; it’s a business decision.  Done right, it can assist in reducing risk, improving performance, and making smarter decisions every day.

The technology is ready. The insights are real. The question is: are you designing your system to watch—or to win?