What To Look For When Selling Video Surveillance To Your Existing Customers

By Jeff Whitney, VP of marketing, Intransa

There is a common situation in physical security where a customer has deployed a legacy solution and is looking to increase its capabilities or capacity. If it is an analog deployment based on VCRs, the system has likely reached its end of life and should be entirely replaced. Detailing the benefits of an IP-based solution, and its future growth capabilities is a smart choice. It will prove to be very affordable if the right modular choices are made and have a long install life. If a DVR-based system, the customer may wish to extend its life as well as gaining new capabilities. Video appliance systems can be deployed to extend the life and increase the capacity and reliability of DVRs, moving recording to the appliance while leaving the analog cameras and DVRs in place. New IP cameras can be added and use the same appliance, or additional appliances integrated into a single, comprehensive system, and replacing the analog systems as they eventually reach end of life.

If the customer already has deployed a modern IP surveillance system, the key will be to evaluate the performance of the surveillance software. Often the software is acceptable, but the hardware it runs on may be quite limited in terms of capacity, expandability, and reliability. The best video appliance solutions support dozens of application choices, each pretested and jointly certified with their manufacturers for use on that appliance, so the customer may be able to continue using their preferred software. That same appliance will typically be very expandable, and designed specifically for physical security needs to make it reliable, affordable and simple to install and operate.