Latin America. Cloud solutions have become a new technological paradigm with great social, technological and economic impact. The Cloud is fostering a new industrial revolution supported in Data Centers and Web applications. Gigi Agassini, Business Development Area Manager for Genetec Mexico, presents the following analysis:
The cloud market is growing at a rapid pace, faster than had been anticipated in recent years, and representing an optimal path for business growth. A study published by Deloitte, points out that Small and Medium Enterprises that use a greater number of cloud services, present a growth of 26% faster than those that do not use tools in the cloud, and are approximately 21% more profitable. Gartner expects market revenue to increase $354.6 billion by 2022.
A study presented by the consultancy IDC points out that cloud solutions in Mexico will grow 24.7% in 2020. Likewise, he mentions that in the Mexican market 44% of businesses use the Cloud (Public or Private) and that 32% had plans to join by 2109.
Faced with this new situation that we are living with more than three billion people from all over the world at home, the consumption trend of e-commerce has skyrocketed. This has led stores to develop strategies to improve their operations, both in sourcing and in the delivery of their products. Internet hits have risen between 50 and 70 percent since the World Health Organization declared the pandemic, according to a note by Mark Beech.
Cloud technology does more than just facilitate change in the industry, helping retailers stay flexible and adapt to the rapid and continuous evolution of the market. More and more retailers are realizing that migrating their security systems to the cloud gives great advantages:
Predictable monthly costs: With cloud-based surveillance, it's easy to budget and plan for growth. For each new location, managers can quickly determine the number of cameras required and the monthly costs for the entire system.
Affordable central monitoring: If there are multiple locations, owners or managers can monitor all video systems from one central location. A cloud-based service can facilitate central monitoring of multiple sites.
Easy remote investigations: If an alarm goes off, regional managers can quickly access the video from a mobile phone or computer. The interface is easy to use, so they will be able to find the video in seconds and export the evidence safely.
Impressive operational value: With remote viewing from a phone, retailers can show prospective owners and investors what stores are like and how they operate. Managers use video to train employees or better understand customers and how they shop.
Resilient cybersecurity: Cloud services are built with the highest level of security mechanisms to ensure data and video are always safe and available. Retailers also receive regular updates with new features that ensure it stays that way.
"A cloud approach can be a cost-effective way to transform an infrastructure, which will help retailers respond faster and more efficiently to customer needs," says Gigi Agassini, business development manager for Genetec Mexico.
Genetec, a provider of security, operations and business intelligence solutions, helps retail stores with its unified security platform. Genetec Stratocast™ is a cloud-based video monitoring system that allows you to watch live and recorded video from your laptop, tablet or smartphone. The service is easy to install, requires minimal maintenance, and helps protect your data so that wherever you are, you can know that your business is protected and operations are running smoothly.
The best part about Stratocast is that retailers don't need to install a Network Video Recorder (NVR). This means they don't need to find space for any additional equipment or open store walls or ceilings, placing a burden on employees and shoppers. They only need a camera and a network connection.
"One of the reasons we considered the cloud was to get out of this server hardware failure issue that we had constantly. We could have hundreds of systems down at any one time, which is still a pretty small percentage, but the interesting thing is that 100% of the time something bad happened, typical was in a place where there was a hardware failure," said Traegon Hon, Global Head of Physical Security at Starbucks.
Starbucks was looking for a highly scalable product that would centralize the monitoring of its cameras, reduce downtime and reduce manual tasks to improve incident response time. Security Center and Stratocast allowed them to deploy thousands of cameras recording directly in the cloud and connected to a main monitoring center, where security operators could access the robust functionalities of the platform from client applications, and other authorized users with simpler needs, could access local video from any device through an Internet portal or with the mobile application.
More and more companies are joining the trend of automating their procedures, in order to optimize the management of resources and generate competitive advantages. The use of cloud solutions has become one of the most used systems to improve collaboration, process agility and information availability.
