A common grievance for shoppers is that they are constantly watched in stores. Even in the excitement of picking up that preferred brand of jeans at a great discount and rushing straight to the trial room, thereís the lingering irritation of being watched by the attendants. And this is not limited to just apparel stores. It is quite noticeable in supermarkets and other outlets that encourage self-shopping, as compared to those shops where customers are attended to by counter staff.



Despite customer discomfort, the need for surveillance remains a pressing one for retailers. Caught between maintaining customer satisfaction and increasing security for their merchandise, retailers are increasingly turning to technology for aid. Technological surveillance methods are now seeing use in many public areasópublic transport, offices, hotels and restaurantsas well as shopping centres and malls.

In the area of retail security solutions, it is essential to articulate the risk factor and do a thorough assessment of the risk.

􀂔 The need could be from a vigilance standpoint to mitigate loss and protect assets or to keep an eye on employee productivity towards improving performances and increasing profits.

􀂔 A retailer's need for surveillance may have nothing to do with security threats, instead arising from a need to analyse and study customer behaviour. Data collected and analysed could be used for improving customerexperience that ultimately provides for more foot-falls and increased sales.

􀂔 On a very functional need, a retailer may just need a system to fulfil a statutory requirement to monitor the people-movement outside his shop.

􀂔 On the other hand a large/mid-format organised retailer may need an integrated security solution that includes surveillance, supply-chain management tracking and reporting solutions (using RFID or barcoding for e.g.), counterfeit detector etc.



To start with, retail in India should not be viewed on the same lines as retail in the developed economies. And within India, retail in major cities should not be viewed on the same lines as retail in non-metros. For example, retail in cities like Mumbai and Gurgaon cannot be compared to retail in smaller cities like Agra and Mysore. Here it is important to ask: Do the security solutions of retail outlets of Greater Kailash 1 (GK-1) differ from that of security solutions inside the malls?

Jewellery stores, for example, have started to adopt CCTV and digital recording solutions that focus on a few aspects inside the stores. One is overall customer monitoring, another is employee pilferage. Most importantly, most jewellers have a practice of counting inventory after customer-hours and before closing shop in the night. They have started to use CCTV pre-set to focus only on the hand and finger movement during the daily inventory-taking processes to watch out for those fickle fingers.

The market forces thrive on such differentiation as each type of retailer has unique needs. For any industry to flourish and thrive there has to be an inherent need for services for companies to operate in that domain. Developed economies are gradually shifting away from retail security solutions as a capex model and moving towards them as a service model where many companies are offering video monitoring and remote monitoring.

With the retail explosion now taking place in our country, are we in a position to leapfrog the learning curve and get to a service-based model? If past examples in other industries are something to refer to, the hard answer is: not likely. Be it IT, infrastructure, telecom, etc the need to build a suitable mass is mandatory before value-added technologies and concepts can gain inroads.

In the retail security domain, we have to first move away from manpower-based security solutions towards technology-based surveillance solutions. And when we reach a critical mass, it will be easy to convert these users to a service model.

Be it the neighbourhood 24-hour pharmaceutical store, jewellery store, textile and health-supplement shop, the retail security solutions that a retailer buys would have to be scalable to add newer requirements without having to junk the earlier purchases. The scope of such solutions would include:

􀂔 Preventing shrinkages

􀂔 Inventory management through product tagging and tracking

􀂔 Employee management

􀂔 Productivity management

As to post-sales service, for retailers falling under proprietor-owned, single-outlet, itís suggested that they have their needs met by the nearest System Integrator who understands the operating style and provides efficient responses.

For proprietor-owned and company-owned multicity/ mutli-outlet retail chains, itís best to explore those system integrators who have a pan-India presence. But more importantly, such retailers should have a direct line of communication with the manufacturer to ensure that system integrator inefficiencies do not impact their security solutions.

As technology improves, surveillance solutions will become increasingly inconspicuous and unobtrusive, so that customers can shop in relative privacy, without the feeling of being watched, while the retailer is assured that the shrinkage is being monitored and every move on the store floor is being watched.

The author is CEO, Zicom Retail Products Pvt. Ltd