The UK high street fashion clothing retailer River Island has more than 350 stores, plus offices and warehouses across the UK, Ireland and across Asia, the Middle East and the rest of Europe. As with many retail brands with widely dispersed stores, surveillance capability across the River Island network had evolved over many years on a site-by-site basis as the business expanded.
To update its CCTV, River Island decided to go from legacy analogue systems to an IP-enabled approach. Historically, each store had stand-alone CCTV. This made it ever more difficult for the business to maintain and upgrade the surveillance systems, and in the event of an incident a security operative would physically need to visit a store to retrieve footage. That limited scope to introduce new features. On deciding upon a phased upgrade, River Island scoped its specification for a futureproof system that would be simple to operate and maintain. To deliver retrievable high-definition images, a system had to include IP cameras, network video recorders and video management software. The retailer sought 24/7 cover for strategic parts of a store, such as entrance doors, stairwells and transaction areas.
The IP-enabled IDIS DirectIP solution as rolled out by River Island includes a mix of HD cameras (between seven and 30 per store), network video recorders and licence-free IDIS Centre video management software. Five stores and a logistics centre are so far complete.
The manufacturers IDIS say that DirectIP offers plug-and-play with implicit pairing of devices, reducing the amount of information that River Island needs to manage. The retailer’s system includes IDIS FEN (For Every Network) technology, which means that multi-site changes can be managed from a single point. Used with all IDIS NVRs, FEN is an automated network configuration service for installation of networked surveillance systems. It also enables remote access without the need for advanced IT knowledge it’s claimed and requires no static IP addressing. River Island can integrate new features such as facial recognition and analytics.
Michelle Douglas, National Safety and Loss Manager at River Island said: “We’ve been really impressed with the IDIS solution that we have now standardised on IDIS for all future store upgrades and fit outs. Representing a low total cost of ownership, it’s easy to use and is enabling us to manage surveillance more efficiently. Furthermore, it’s given us the future-proof capability to introduce new features and upgrades as our security requirements evolve.”
