What Is Video Analytics And What Does It Mean For Your Business?
By Linda Gimmeson, contributing writer
Video analytics is no longer a niche technology available only to the largest companies with the biggest budgets. It has become a valuable tool that makes nearly any business a more versatile and effective organization. This can be seen in the number of industries showing renewed interest in all video analytics has to offer.
From health clinics to retail stores, bank branches to sports venues, businesses can see the good that can come from video analytics and want to adopt the technology for themselves. Perhaps your business is in a similar position having heard about the benefits of video analytics. Even if you don’t quite understand the intricacies of the technology, you’ll quickly see the advantages your company will discover as you implement it within your organization.
Put in simple terms, video analytics is a technology that automatically analyzes video in order to detect events the system is programmed to look for. This goes beyond simply setting up surveillance cameras and includes software that can analyze what’s being recorded through the lens. One of the most common and basic functions of video analytics is motion detection, basically allowing the system to recognize when something is moving in front of the camera. But the number of applications for video analytics has rapidly multiplied in recent years as the technology has advanced.
The uses of these applications will largely depend on the business. For example, if an organization wants to use video analytics for security reasons, they may use the shape recognition application to detect if a suspicious object is present. Another business may be most concerned about safety, so they’ll use the flame and smoke detection function. With that application, the system can detect smoke and flames in 20 seconds or less, giving advanced warning even over common smoke detectors. All of these applications use advanced algorithms embedded within video analytics systems, granting businesses more capabilities than ever before.
Perhaps the most popular use of video analytics — one you’ll likely be the most interested in — is the ability it gives businesses to increase their business intelligence. Cameras hooked up with video analytics can provide companies a wealth of information about how the business is being run, what customers do, and more. Video analytics can act as an advanced people counter, determining how many people walk into q store and what they do there. This can be taken to the level of heat mapping, where the system tracks where they go, giving detailed data on how best to lay out property and maximize the potential for goods to be sold. Video analytics can also engage in behavior analysis, not only tracking where customers go but how they act. This function can provide incredible insights into why customers make certain purchases and why others don’t.
All of this information can be put to good use in optimizing a business. For instance, the data collected on customer behavior can shape a new marketing strategy. It’s in cases like this a company leverages analytics data to become a well-oiled machine.
All of these capabilities have become more popular in part because video analytics technology has become more reliable than in the past. There are fewer cases of false alarms, and the technology itself has led to more useful applications. Thanks to advances such as edge computing, many of the calculations and analysis can be done at the camera itself, reducing the demand for more bandwidth. And since much of this process is automated, that also means less time used by employees to watch videos and perform the analysis as well.
Whether it’s having more business intelligence, improved security, or better safety, video analytics has proven to be a valuable technology that can be applied to almost every industry. Even if you have little understanding of how it works, with the right experts on hand and a good video analytics provider prepared, you’ll be ready to tackle the challenges and reap the benefits that come from this technology. The improvements are real, and taking advantage of them now will put you in a better position to gain the edge over your competitors at a time where even the slightest advantage can make all the difference.