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Australian retailer upgrades to IP

In Australia Harvey Norman is a franchise operation with 250 stores trading under the ‘Harvey Norman’, ‘Domayne’ and ‘Joyce Mayne’ brands, and selling electrical, computer and entertainment equipment, furniture and bedding in different sectors of the market. It takes the interests of franchisees very seriously and its commitment to store security is one expression of this. It maintains a very high level of technical expertise within the organisation and provides the franchisees who handle their own day-to-day security operations with both the security hardware and specialist security support.

Until recently, all stores were using surveillance systems with analogue cameras and DVRs, but as system reliability and image quality issues mounted it became imperative to find a new long term replacement.

Top of the list of requirements was good image quality, but important too was 90-day storage capacity, hybrid operation with existing analogue cameras, and easy-to-use client software. In this environment, where systems are operated by store managers without specialist skills or knowledge, this last criterion is particularly significant so good intuitive design is key.

Besides meeting these requirements, Geutebrück also enjoys a reputation for offering cost-effective IP systems. As Bill Elkass, Harvey Norman’s general manager of loss prevention reports, “Geutebrück technology is user friendly. Its client software is very easy to navigate through and it was particularly useful to us that there are Geutebrück staff here in Australia who could provide answers and help in devising a good solution.”

For the stores with upgraded systems the frustration of poor images is a thing of the past. Elkass continues, “Now we find that when we are looking at an incident of theft, we can see exactly what is going on: what the suspect picks up and where he conceals it. Our new systems provide the clarity which enables the police to take action.”

Installations vary depending on the size of the store and on the existing kit which has been incorporated. Small stores have 40 to 50 cameras, large ones around 110, and the average is 60 to 70. Some solutions are hybrid systems, using Geutebrück re_porter hardware and combining existing analogue cameras with new IP ones sited to monitor critical areas – cameras over cash registers for instance, to provide a detailed record of transactions and spot discrepancies. While other stores have pure IP systems using super micro servers with 30 cameras per server.

“Running Geutebrück software on super micro servers is a good solution for us,” explains Elkass, “because it gives us the storage duration we wanted. We find we need 90 days because it takes time for the police to put a case together, and it can be some weeks after an incident that they request video evidence. In the past we had usually overwritten the relevant recording. Now, we still have it.”

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