VCA Technology & C Store Collective Join Forces To Revolutionise Convenience Store Retail

We are excited to announce a new partnership between VCA Technology and C Store Collective, aimed at transforming the landscape of convenience store retailing. By combining VCA’s cutting-edge video analytics software with C Store Collective’s expert consulting services, we are revolutionising the way retailers approach safety, security, and profitability.

According to the ACS Crime Report, retail crime is costing the sector £125 million, with an estimated 41,000 violent incidents and 11,000 burglaries. 65% of retailers report a rise in organised crime over the past year.

“With C Store Collective’s extensive experience in convenience store consulting, we are able to offer independent retail miniples access to expert guidance and tailored solutions. From optimising store layouts to implementing targeted marketing strategies, C Store Collective helps retailers unlock their full potential and achieve sustainable growth.” 

Jonathan Rons – C-Store Collective

At VCA Technology, we understand the importance of leveraging technology to enhance the retail experience and drive business success. Our advanced video analytics software provides retailers with invaluable insights into customer behaviour, allowing them to optimise operations, improve security, and maximise profitability.

“Retail crime is increasing, especially theft in stores, so we have to become smarter at dealing with it. Every retailer will need to look at systems that can support them to minimise stock loss. Working with the C-Store Collective and VCA Technology delivers a system that supports our sector and is helping us tackle this growing challenge.” 

Siva – Multi Site Owner, TYS Retail, Peterborough

In our partnership, we deliver a comprehensive suite of services and solutions to convenience store retailers, including:

• Proprietary & confidential information
• Suite of standard products; software and cameras
• Utilise existing CCTV and network
• Custom solutions
• Provide data and alerts to manage all aspects of business
• VCA Artificial Intelligence

Additionally, convenience store retailers benefit from:

• Free use of VCA partner technology for 90 days
• Connection through existing CCTV network
• Analysis and recommendations as part of the overall project
• Gain a better understanding of customer flow, hot and cold spots in the store, customer dwell times at fixtures, footfall within the store, potential to identify non-spending customers, dwell times at tills, and understanding of misuse of SSCO by shoppers.

Together we are committed to empowering convenience store retailers with the tools and knowledge they need to thrive in today’s competitive market. Our collaboration brings together the best of both worlds, combining cutting-edge technology with hands-on expertise to deliver unparalleled results.

Looking to enhance your convenience store’s security, improve operational efficiency, or increase sales?

To learn more about our collaboration and how it can benefit your business, contact us today via the contact form below.

Combating Self-Service Checkout Abuse with Video Analytics Software

In recent years, self-service checkout (SSCO) systems have become increasingly prevalent in retail stores, offering convenience and efficiency for both shoppers and retailers alike. However, the rise of SSCO abuse, leading to heightened levels of shrinkage and violence against retail workers, has sparked a heated debate over the pros and cons of these systems. With some retailers, such as Booths, opting to remove SSCO machines altogether due to the associated risks, it’s clear that urgent action is needed to address these challenges.

The Impact of SSCO Abuse on Retailers & Staff

The consequences of SSCO abuse extend far beyond financial losses. The escalating levels of theft and violence against retail workers have taken a toll on staff morale, contributing to increased absences and diminished job satisfaction. Moreover, the economic impact of retail theft is staggering, with the British Retail Consortium’s 2023 Crime Survey revealing that annual retail theft in Britain amounted to £953 million, despite significant investments in crime prevention measures.

The prevalence of SSCO abuse has created a hostile work environment for frontline retail workers, who face daily threats of violence and abuse from disgruntled customers. Incidents of violence and abuse towards retail colleagues nearly doubled on pre-pandemic levels, reaching an alarming average of 867 incidents every day in 2021/22. This trend is deeply concerning and underscores the urgent need for effective solutions to address the root causes of SSCO abuse. 

Empowering Retailers with Video Technology

In the face of these challenges, technology offers a beacon of hope for retailers seeking to combat SSCO abuse and enhance security in their stores. VCA Technology’s innovative cameras and video analytics software solutions provide retailers with the tools they need to detect and deter theft, protect their staff, and safeguard their bottom line.

By deploying surveillance cameras equipped with intelligent video analytics capabilities, retailers can monitor SSCO transactions in real-time and identify suspicious behaviour patterns indicative of theft or abuse. This proactive approach allows retailers to reduce losses and  ultimately creating a safer and more secure shopping environment for both customers and staff.

Take A Stand Against Retail Theft & Violence

VCA Technology’s forensic video analytics software solutions empower retailers to provide police with comprehensive evidence to aid in the prosecution of shoplifters and perpetrators of violence. Using existing CCTV cameras, this simple addition will provide a huge asset to existing security systems and equip retailers with the technology they need to gather sufficient evidence of criminal activity.

VCAforensics’ ‘Search & Track’ software can enable retailers to search hours of CCTV footage to locate a person of interest within minutes.

Want To Find Out More?

If you are keen to understand more about how VCA Technology can help your retail store in the fight against retail crime and self-service checkout abuse, please get in touch via email: info@vcatechnology.com or use the contact form below and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

VCA Technology has sales and support offices in Europe, Asia and the USA.

Revolutionising Surveillance: VCA Unveils ‘Search & Track’ Feature For Enhanced Security Operations

VCA Technology, a leading innovator in video analytics, proudly announces the launch of its latest forensic software feature, ‘Search & Track’. Designed to elevate security operations to unprecedented levels, this cutting-edge technology introduces a new era of precision in video surveillance. 

“With ‘Search & Track,’ we’re not just providing a tool; we’re empowering security professionals with an intelligent and precise solution that will redefine how they approach video surveillance and investigations using their existing CCTV infrastructure.” 

Kevin Waterhouse, MD – VCA Technology 

‘Search & Track’ Specific Individuals In 4 Easy Steps  

Step 1: Initiate your search 

Begin your person tracking journey by choosing the desired date, time, and camera channels. 

Step 2: Precision refinement 

Enhance your search accuracy by specifying clothing characteristics, searching by event, or simply uploading a reference image. 

Step 3: Target location and review 

Once your person of interest is located, explore surveillance footage from all cameras within a chosen time period in seconds. 

Step 4: Trace activity in chronological flow 

Follow the chronological order of videos to trace the movements of the target individual. You can then redact, export, or action the files. 

Empowered By State-Of-The-Art AI And Scalable Analytics 

VCA’s ‘Search & Track’ is underpinned by analytic solutions powered by state-of-the-art AI algorithms and deep learning models. The scalability of our solutions allows for deployment on a variety of hardware platforms, ensuring flexibility and adaptability to diverse security infrastructures. 

Contact VCA Technology 

If you’d like to know more about how VCA’s ‘Search & Track’ feature can empower your video surveillance, then please complete the contact form below.

VCA team with TELETEC to provide our range of IPAi cameras with Ai analytics on board.

We have partnered with Telectec to provide our range of IPAi cameras with Ai analytics on board. This camera range can also support a number of additional plug-ins to allow other services to run at the edge. Plug-ins include ANPR, FACE, and NxEmbedded.

NxEmbedded is a fully working Nx Witness Server installation on the camera, providing a completely distributed VMS solution with no server hardware required.

“Teletec presents a new concept for how camera surveillance can be applied for varied security needs and applications. At every stage, it becomes easy to design a system that is flexible and scalable for both the installer and the user. This is easily achieved with few components and products that result in a sustainable investment.

With world-class cameras and AI analytics from UK-based VCA Technology combined with Nx Witness VMS software from Network Optix, an innovative security platform is created that is scalable and future-proof.”

Understanding the power of video analytics in managing retail loss prevention

The retail landscape has undergone a significant transformation in recent years.  

Not only have retailers had to deal with a change in customer behaviours, the introduction of automation and the evolvement of online shopping, but they are continuously faced with the increase in crime trends and shoplifting.

The rise of shoplifting

The cost of living rises is driving an increase in shoplifting. According to research by the BBC, shoplifting offences have returned to pre-pandemic levels as a result of the hike of cost of living.  

It’s not only shoplifters that retailers are battling with. Anti-social behaviour is also on the rise, with vulnerable retail staff risking their safety and dealing with theft on a regular basis.

Why is loss prevention an issue in retail?

A recent report by the British Retail Consortium has highlighted the alarming increase in criminal activities within retail establishments. One a prominent UK retailer, has reported a surge in criminal gangs, leading to incidents of staff being physically abused or threatened with weapons. This unsettling trend has created a frightening atmosphere for retail employees.  

Additionally, the number of shoplifting cases has risen drastically, from 2.9 million in 2017/18 to 7.9 million in 2021/22, according to the British Retail Consortium. Alongside this surge, the value of thefts has risen from £663 million to £953 million, signifying the financial implications retailers face. 

Theft and unexplained missing inventory can quickly absorb profit and have a negative impact on a business, so it’s important that retailers are armed with efficient resources and solutions to combat them.

What does loss prevention mean in retail?

If you’re a business in the retail sector and don’t have a strategy to manage theft and loss inventory, then it’s time to start thinking about how you can protect your profits through retail loss prevention.

So, what can you do to prevent theft and protect your profit margins? There are different methods you can implement to tighten your security, protect your staff and manage loss prevention effectively.  

Add shoplifting prevention at checkouts

Self-checkout systems are a convenient way for customers to self-serve and for retailers to minimise the need for supervisors on the shop floor. However, they come with their own set of challenges. Automation and fewer staff members on the shop floor have made it easier for shoplifters to go unnoticed, increasing the likelihood of theft.  

Video analytics software, can monitor self-checkout areas and automatically flag suspicious behaviour. This helps prevent shoplifting attempts and reduces the financial burden on retailers.

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Detect suspicious activity

It can be hard for retailers to manage every customer that comes through the door, especially if they don’t have the resource available. Utilising retail security systems can help detect abnormal behaviour, such as loitering around high-valuable items or shelf clearing.

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Enhance staff safety

With the rise in criminal trends and theft, so is the demand for better safety precautions for retail staff. They are the ones that find themselves vulnerable to criminal acts and face verbal and physical abuse. Video analytics software can help protect staff and customers by providing visual evidence of criminal activities to identify and apprehend repeat offenders. 

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Invest in retail loss prevention technology

If you are looking to enhance the effectiveness of your retail security systems, then exploring the benefits of video analytics solutions is worthwhile. Designed to tackle the increasing challenges of loss prevention and staff safety, investing in retail loss prevention technology helps you to reduce risk of theft, protect your customers and maintain your profit margins.

Providing retail loss prevention solutions

At VCA Technology, we offer solutions for managing retail loss prevention. Our cutting-edge retail security systems can utilise your existing security cameras to detect abnormal customer behaviour and early warnings of potential theft. We give you the data and analytics to manage loss prevention and efficiently optimise your security and store to prevent theft from happening.  

Contact us today for more information about how our retail loss prevention solutions. We can talk you through our retail solutions and how we can help you create a better, safer retail environment.  

VCA Technology opens new office in Thailand

VCA Technology have made another huge stride in their growth by announcing that they have opened up a new office in Bangkok, Thailand.  

The office, which will be the hub of VCA Asia, has been opened as VCA Technology are seeing a notable increase in demand for their products in the Asian region.  

As part of the expansion, Ratchanita (Yui) Chantacharoen has been announced as Managing Director of VCA Asia (Thailand), with her and her team bringing many years’ experience in the security market to the new company.  

Commenting on Yui’s arrival, James Ahn, CEO of VCA Technology, believes that the company’s global standing will be bolstered by the news and that their Asian customers will greatly benefit.  

“We are delighted to welcome Yui and her team to our family,” Ahn said. “The addition of VCA Asia further strengthens our global presence and will help us provide greater support for our growing customer base in the region.  

Adding further comment was Yui herself, who believes the products produced by VCA Technology will continue to leave a positive mark in Asia.  

“With more that 15 years of experience in IP surveillance, we are certain that VCA will be the perfect solution for our customers in both public and private sectors,” Yui said. “VCA’s distinctive features in precision and reliability makes its products cost-effective and significant value for investment at all levels”.  

“VCA Technology Asia (Thailand) is delighted to be part of the VCA family to develop shared success and thriving together in Asian region.” 

For more information contact info@vcatechnology.com 

VCA Technology AWARDED as one of the TOP 5 Smart Retail Solutions Providers In the UK for 2023.

VCA Technology has been awarded top smart retail solutions provider in the UK 2023 by Retail Tech Insights.

It’s a testament to our team’s dedication and expertise in delivering innovative solutions that transform the retail industry. We remain committed to driving excellence in the retail industry and look forward to continuing to provide cutting-edge solutions, enhancing customer journeys and business growth.

VCA extends its relationship with Veracity.

We are delighted and honoured to be extending the relationship with Veracity. Our common approach to product innovation and integration to deliver cost-effective solutions will bring enormous benefits to our respective and mutual global customers.

Veracity is pleased to announce we have agreed a global technology partnership with VCA Technology including exclusivity for the Middle East and Indian markets. Ashley W., Group Sales Director comments, “This is a fantastic partnership for our global business and will add significant value for our customers. VCA’s advanced analytics combined with Veracity’s Recording and Storage Systems ensure we have a solution to meet the customers’ needs across a full suite of AI applications. I am thrilled that we are expanding our long-standing partnership with VCA Technology and very much look forward to continued joint success.”

Secure Logiq Partner VCA Technology

The global hardware partnership between Secure Logiq and VCA Technology has yielded its first results. Following a period of intensive testing, the manufacturers have fine-tuned their solutions to determine the best combinations of software and hardware from the two brands that will set new standards in the industry.

Secure Logiq and VCA formed their strategic partnership towards the end of 2022. This led to the manufacturer of servers designed for the HD CCTV industry becoming the global hardware partner for the security and business intelligence software manufacturer.

“We’ve developed a great relationship with VCA after working with them for a long time so we know how powerful their analytics solutions are,” says Secure Logiq’s Robin Hughes. “Our R&D teams have been working together to find the optimum solutions to deliver best-in-class results to our shared customers at a price-point that is hard to match.”

“This partnership has always been about overcoming the lack of customer knowledge about hardware options,” adds VCA’s Kevin Waterhouse. “The work we have done together takes away a lot of those customer questions. We can now offer specific solutions based on the needs of our clients safe in the knowledge that our combined R&D teams have worked together to ensure the optimum performance is achieved.”

VCA takes pride in its ability to squeeze a large amount of analytics into a very low amount of CPU usage – an attribute that has come from the on-camera analytics side of its business. This means that the new combined offerings are able to host a variety of VCA applications on one Secure Logiq server, not just security.

With VCA analytics covering a variety of sectors, from traffic management to retail with elements including forensic searches and heat mapping, the combined solution will be attractive to a variety of organisations.

“We believe the work done by this partnership will expand both of our businesses,” concludes Hughes. “We have created a variety of best-in-class solutions that will be attractive to customers in a wide number of areas.”

View the original article here: https://firebuyer.com/secure-logiq-partner-vca-technology/

VCA Version 2.1.0 Release

May 2023

The latest v2.1.0 release introduces a new VCAbehaviour licence, encapsulating a number of new algorithms designed and focused on the detection of specific object behaviours. In addition, a host of new features and quality of life improvements have also been added to VCAserver.

Hand Object Interaction (HOI) Tracker

The HOI Tracker is a new algorithm that allows for the tracking of hands and objects held in that hand. As with all VCA tracked objects, zones and rules can be utilised to create advanced behaviour detection rules applicable to retail shelf protection to prevent shrinkage as Self Checkout terminals. 

Quality of Life Improvements

• Repeatedly Rule: generates an event when an input rule is triggered a set number of times within a defined period. This allows for rule configurations such as, trigger event when a person enters a zone three times in four seconds.
• Counter Reset: allows a rule to trigger the counter to reset to 0.
• UI support for SSL and Certificates: allowing for a self managed end to end encrypted connection between your browser and the back end services.
• ONVIF Events: Events have now been added to our ONVIF integration allowing for events triggered by our rules to be consumed by external applications.

For more information see http://www.vcatechnology.com or Contact info@vcatechnology.com

VCA Technology joins NVIDIA Metropolis Partner Program

London — 12^th May 2021 — VCA Technology, one of the leading developers of Video Analytics with over 500,000 channels installed worldwide, today announced it has joined NVIDIA Metropolis, a program designed to nurture and bring to market a new generation of applications and solutions that make the world’s most important spaces and operations safer and more efficient with advancements in AI vision. Being part of the Metropolis program will ensure that VCA continues to be at the forefront of AI-based analytics solutions.

VCA has recently launched a new line of deep learning based analytics, building on its years of experience in public safety, retail and traffic analytics. Sold through its global partners, VCAcore provides outstanding performance in a range of environments. Key to its goal to provide the most cost effective solutions is the optimization of its software with NVIDIA TensorRT which speeds up deep learning inference while reducing the runtime memory footprint for convolutional and deconv neural networks.

The inference optimizations in TensorRT help run AI models in real-time with high performance, a key requirement in edge applications like intelligent video analytics, robotics, healthcare, etc. Running on NVIDIA GPU-accelerated servers/workstations or the NVIDIA Jetson edge AI platform, it is now possible to bring more AI computation at the edge, giving VCA Technology customers a significant increase in channels for their applications.

NVIDIA Metropolis makes it easier and more cost effective for enterprises, governments, and integration partners to leverage world-class AI-enabled solutions to improve critical operational efficiency and safety problems. The NVIDIA Metropolis ecosystem contains a large and growing breadth of partners who are investing in the most advanced AI techniques, most efficient deployment platforms, and use an enterprise-class approach to their solutions. Partners have the opportunity to gain early access to NVIDIA platform updates to further enhance and accelerate their AI application development efforts. Further, the program offers the opportunity for partners to collaborate with industry-leading experts and other AI-driven organizations.

“Joining the NVIDIA Metropolis program is a further endorsement of our AI-based developments.” said Kevin Waterhouse, MD of VCA. “Working alongside the NVIDIA team and the partners in this program will collectively provide outstanding solutions to our respective areas of interest.”

About VCA Technology

VCA Technology, founded in 2007, has over 50 global technology partnerships that provide security and business intelligence solutions to protect and grow firms’ understanding of the threats facing their businesses. Deployed worldwide in excess of 500,000 video channels, VCA Technology’s analytics solutions accurately capture data to help a diverse range of businesses and organisations achieve a greater understanding of the behaviour of people who work or visit their premises. VCA Technology provides security personnel with a powerful tool to detect and combat theft and other criminal activity, as well as an opportunity for installers, remote monitoring centres and end-users to work together to reduce the time consuming and costly impact of false alarms. For more information about VCA Technology, please visit vcatechnology.com.