I am often asked for tips on selling IP. It’s a good question as everyone assumes that you need different skills for selling this emerging technology. But the fact of the matter is, selling is selling.

If you can uncover a customer’s known (and unknown) needs, it’s easy to craft a solution they will believe in. There are three specific areas that can be uncovered in the investigative part of the sales call that will compel the customer to choose an all digital solution for their camera system. I say “camera” system instead of surveillance because, in today’s network video world, we are really selling customers on what they can do with an extra pair of eyes (cameras).

Redundancy (business interruption proof)

If your customer is very concerned or even slightly concerned about a failsafe system, it’s actually to your advantage to specify an all IP surveillance system. It is easier to provide full power redundancy to your entire security system with IP. Since the network is the lifeblood of most companies, routers, switches and servers already exist in safe environments and, with best practices, are attached to UPS (uninterrupted power supply) systems. With PoE being possible for almost all network cameras, you can provide full power redundancy to the camera itself — something that isn’t done with analogue. During a power outage, an end user is most vulnerable and network cameras are perfectly suited to be up all the time with a UPS.

A second option, cloud-based recording, enables the video to be stored in multiple places as well as offsite. What is the first thing a criminal does when robbing a store? They grab or destroy the DVR or other recording device. Not only will there be no onsite device to steal, using cloud computing with the right video hosting partner means that the data centre housing your critical information has multiple Internet vendor feeds, UPS, power generators, and very strict physical security and access.

Additionally, data can be easily recorded in multiple areas at the same time thanks to the IP feature of multi-streaming. In the rare event of a network failure, you can program the video to be stored directly on the camera’s SD card. This information can be linked back to the rest of the metadata once the network is restored.

In short, network video can be accessed via a secure Web browser even if its recording device is down. With an analogue system, your entire security system is down if the DVR fails.