The year is already off to a bit of a weird start, with Covid hanging over us, the PM hanging on by a thread and the rest of us just hanging on in there, waiting for it all to get better. There is good news for businesses. We spoke to Chris Lakin, co-founder and Director of Oracle, who’s here to explain how security in 2022 is here to help. This article walks through the 2022 security trends, technologies and teamwork that are here to save the day.
Using security solutions to do more with less
Covid isn’t going away any time soon, and it’s causing headaches for a lot of businesses due to serious staff shortages. If we can re-think how we view our security solutions, we’ll see this technology can help with the issue. From monitoring whether company procedures are being followed, to checking if people are wearing masks, VSS cameras have a capability far beyond security.
This is about remote management of processes. We can use video and access control via the network to manage these sites remotely using our software. We can verify people on site, and ensure health and safety and operations are running fine. What’s more, we can also manage people’s access remotely. It means that if you don’t have someone on site to do all this, the trains can keep running. Security solutions can help you do more, with less.
Yes Covid is here now, but hopefully it won’t be forever. If you invest now, and broaden how you see the system’s potential, it won’t be money lost. We’ll still be able to use these solutions for monitoring your site, changing your working practices, and finding efficiencies, in 2023 and beyond.
Keeping people safe wherever they work
Despite the most recent call from the government to get people back in the office, there is no denying that home working and flexible work arrangements are here to stay. As a result, you have smaller work density, unoccupied spaces, and lone workers, which all pose a risk. Remote monitoring is no longer a ‘nice to have’, it’s a ‘must-have’.
Although Covid has come along and magnified the capabilities of some of these products, companies were catching on even before the pandemic began. It’s helpful to remember that companies wanted that remote monitoring and connectivity to enable unmanned work spaces. We can use integrated access control, VSS and remote monitoring to allow companies to vastly reduce the personnel on site, remove some space and make efficiencies.
Once again, this is about turning a response to Covid (and the associated investment) into a more everyday working best practice. One of the chats I had recently with a manufacturer was about them wanting thermal imaging and face mask recognition at the plant. It’s expensive gear – those cameras are around £6000 each. What I explained was that we should see the potential of the solution to work even after we’re worried about Covid. We discussed how further down the line, we could use the cameras for heat detection on the production line, and connect it to the fire safety system. It’s all about seeing beyond pure security, and finding how this can help your operations.
The personal touch – customising your security with AI
Artificial Intelligence is a growing part of our customers’ security solutions, as we use it to learn about their systems and adapt to be as effective as possible. What AI does is allows us to tailor the solution to the site – something that has been part of the Oracle Vision DNA long before any of us had even heard of coronavirus. Our 5-step design is all about learning about the company so we can offer site-specific solutions. Now, the systems have evolved to support that more fully than ever. Our processes, although they sound nice-to-have, are becoming essential. It might seem like we’re nosy, but really, we just want to get the best out of the system we recommend to you.
The Protect Duty Consultation in 2022
If you are responsible for a public space like a hospital, shopping centre or event venue, and you haven’t heard of the Protect Duty, get on it (check out our blog). This year will be more of the same – it’s still in consultation phase. I’m sure there will be changes, but organisations need to get thinking about this now. We have to be operation-led, and see how we can use technology in an integrated way to respond to the threat of terrorism. Any effort we can make now, through improved workflow, automation and technology is going to make us stronger.
Teaming up with IT
This year, we have to make friends with IT. It’s not the case in every organisation – some of our customers have security sitting as part of IT – but so often IT sits too far away from those responsible for security. Oracle Vision have invested quite a bit of time and effort with to allow us to talk between IT and security to get the environment right to work properly. Where IT are distant, we miss out on important updates and opportunities to put the best system in place. Just recently, a customer was doing device updates and it knocked out some of our systems. Even a quick message would have allowed us to avoid that mistake. Let’s have better systems by working together!
