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Every National Football League (NFL) season, one team emerges as the Super Bowl champion. And usually among the analysts’ comments about the winner, there is an explanation of how teamwork was a major reason for the victory. The offense, defense and special teams’ players knew their roles and complemented their teammates. The overall team philosophy permeated through each player and coach. Similar analysis can also explain a successful business endeavor, as teamwork among executives, physical security managers and IT managers is critical for companies launching new projects. One major initiative bringing these groups even closer together is video surveillance.
Video surveillance was once under the exclusive domain of the physical security department. However, as innovators begin to recognize video as a progressive business tool and IP and digital security technologies advance, video infrastructure management moves into the space of the company IT department and out of the physical security one. And it’s only one part of corporate infrastructure catalyzing the convergence of the two very different departments.
IT and Security Intertwined
As IT and security move towards convergence, there are two main drivers of the meeting. Previously, security data sat almost exclusively in the domain of the security department and was not utilized by other areas of the company. Now we are starting to see more business applications being developed that help to drive more value from data generated from corporate systems. Video is perhaps the prime example of a system being “unlocked” and its benefits extended to others in the organization.
There was a day not too long ago when analog video needed its own cabling and dedicated infrastructure. With the advent of digital video technology, the need for proprietary equipment diminished. Now that the cameras themselves can be deployed as network devices (IP cameras) and the compression takes place at the camera itself, the infrastructure required is the same as is deployed for the standard IT network. The IT team can now leverage its experience related to capacity planning, uptime, backup operations and capital budget to manage the video requirements as one more system requirement.
By off-loading infrastructure management to IT, the security department and other business users can leverage these systems to focus on managing the business. Video has become another piece of digital information that has allowed managers to run their businesses efficiently. Video is a vehicle for verifying events that happen every day in the area of customer service, loss prevention, operations and safety, inventory shipments, public safety, plus many more.
Devices can be placed in various locations to monitor events such as theft, assault, vandalism, retail point of sale operations, inventory receiving, entry and access, and automated gauges. As each of these devices or systems recognizes an event that is important to the business, that event can be correlated with video to make business operation decisions.
How Does Convergence Help Businesses?
In some regards, an IT staff is the great enabler of the company. As organizations become more and more dependent on technology, IT is asked to do more to help facilitate applications for system users of varying types with different objectives. Because IT already “owns” the company’s information thoroughfare, it is much more efficient to piggyback security devices onto the network and remove the support and maintenance of a proprietary system in the organization. With this burden removed (or at least greatly minimized), the security staff can better concentrate on applying its expertise to areas with a higher return to the company.
IT is responsible for planning, network administration, etc., while security personnel act as the system users. Security and loss prevention professionals need IT projects to integrate information for systems like POS, inventory, door contact, video analytic events, EAS, RFID, etc. This integration is accomplished by bringing the security staff the information it needs efficiently to analyze situations quickly.
Because there is such pull on IT from so many different directions, it is imperative to use its resources efficiently (and in doing so, become its favorite group to support). The fundamental key is to understand fully the objective to be achieved by the security group and clearly communicate it to the IT department, including how it will benefit the overall organization (having another champion of your cause can only help). It is also very important to develop realistic expectations of the resources required of the IT group to make sure that there are few, if any, surprises and potential strain on the IT-security relationship. Because IT will likely be maintaining a company’s new infrastructure, this should not be viewed as a one-time project, but instead as an ongoing relationship and it will certainly benefit by open assessment of improvement by both parties.
Video is no longer the domain of security, but a benefit for many people in many departments. Therefore, the software and the implementation of the selected solution have to be managed and organized with cross departmental responsibilities.
Initiate a Project
Most projects will likely be initiated by the business managers who have developed business cases of how a technology will impact their part of the organization. For example, security managers may initiate a video surveillance program that requires deployment across multiple locations. To determine the return on investment (ROI) for a project such as this, these security managers must collaborate with IT to obtain the necessary information to calculate the ROI. Once the project begins, IT will coordinate the deployment and not only ensure that the video surveillance hardware and software work properly, but also safeguard against the project negatively impacting other parts of the IT infrastructure. Overall, it is IT’s responsibility to work with security managers to develop the IT strategies and tactics that allow the projects to be implemented effectively, so that the entire business benefits.
Evaluating how a project benefits the entire organization is a critical best practice in project prioritization. A video surveillance implementation, for example, needs to be viewed as a business input that can provide value across the entire organization. Then project prioritization and comparison can be performed by IT, as it does these cross organization prioritizations as a normal part of business.
By combining the organizational benefits, companies get a true picture of the value of a project to an organization. In the video case, there can be value from loss prevention, risk, operations, liability, training and other groups. If the value is perceived as just loss prevention, it may be rated unrealistically low in overall value compared to cost.
Sharing Resources
Resources will be shared in the most efficient way. Network, connectivity, bandwidth allocation, software implementation and technical problem resolution will be handled by IT where the expertise and infrastructure to manage these already exist. End users will have their normal P&L responsibilities with the IT infrastructure cost allocated back to the organizations that receive value from the equipment and service. Their stated value commitment compared to their allocated portion of the cost will be measured as a normal part of business.
Just as great football teams are more cohesive and effective after winning the Super Bowl than they are early in the season, the collaboration process between IT and physical security improves through time. As these two groups work more closely together and solve some of the challenges of the issues presented here, they will begin to see value from their security initiatives and achieve Super Bowl-caliber success.
About the Authors:
Andrew Wren is President of Wren, a manufacturer of video surveillance equipment and solutions. Dutch Schultz is Vice President of Development and Operations for Wren.
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