It goes without saying that India has innumerable bottlenecks but this scenario has lately been changing and we have the ongoing digitization a lot to thank for. For long, such bottlenecks have caused inefficiencies and challenges that lead to tangible losses and disruptions. This transformation, thankfully, has also been coming to the security and surveillance sector and, with it, has been transforming the grand scheme of things.
Earlier, security and surveillance devices used to be widely known as ‘dumb devices' that needed to be monitored by security personnel. This increased our reliance on human workforce which caused wide-ranging errors and omissions. However, with the advent of IP surveillance cameras, this has also been changing of late. Let us discuss IP surveillance devices, their growth, and how are they panning out in the Indian market.
IP Surveillance devices in 2019
To begin with, there are mainly two types of surveillance devices, analog-based cameras and IP-driven surveillance cameras. As it can be inferred by their names, analog-based cameras transmit the video feed by leveraging the analog signals that can be received by television or other receivers such as monitors, VCRs, and so on. On the other hand, IP surveillance devices, also called the network cameras, digitize the video signals using dedicated encoders – making them accessible through the existing network or via the internet.
As one of their merits, IP surveillance devices enable us to process the video feed using video analytics and derive useful insights from them. Its other benefits include remote accessibility, integration of wide-ranging technologies (video dewarping, Wide Dynamic Range, motion detection, and other Artificial Intelligence-driven functionality, etc.), leaner infrastructure, and the ability to automate manual processes alongside others.
Today, these IP surveillance devices are being used for a number of use cases including traffic management, performance analysis, deriving business intelligence, and triggering alert for a given use case. The advents of these IP surveillance devices have been pivotal in driving the demand for surveillance devices on a global scale. And the same stand to be true for the Indian market. So, we should have a look at how the surveillance market is panning out in India.
Growth and future of surveillance sector in India
As digitization continues to gain currency in our country, with more people adopting the digital technology for its innumerable advantages, Indian businesses of all shapes and sizes have also been eyeing digital solutions to drive greater productivity and effectiveness for wide-ranging applications. It is enabling them to do with human resource unavailability, the errors and omissions inherent to it due to fatigue and negligence, and the limitations of earlier network.
At present, the security and surveillance industry is steadily growth with a CAGR of 32% and this growth rate is expected to be sustained at least till 2023. The current market size, including IP and analog solutions, is around Rs. 20 billion.
India is a price-sensitive market but as more businesses realize the need of a specialized and seamless surveillance and security solution, the demand for an all-encompassing and integrated alternative can be seen brewing within the market. Also, though IP surveillance cameras are being readily adopted, the market is aware that these solutions are based on the IoT (Internet of Things) technology, which is relatively novel and has more than 70,000 known CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) vis-à-vis cybersecurity.
In 2016, a first-of-its-kind terabit-level DDoS attack (the average attack peak size generally is in gigabits) was conducted on DNS service provider Dyn, which caused service outages of several tech giants including Twitter, Electronic Arts, PlayStation Network, Spotify, and Netflix. This attack was conducted using compromised IoT devices such as IP cameras, baby monitors, and so on.
So, as IP surveillance cameras continue to gain traction, the need to secure this network layer, which has increased the overall network boundary of organizations, is also imperative. The industry has to holistically move towards this direction as a forward-looking approach and address the cybersecurity concerns to ensure that any undesirable event doesn't occur in the future.
To sum up, the future seems to be bright for the security and surveillance industry in India. Everything is pointing towards the deployment of a proactive infrastructure that is soon going to help our nation to do away with its current challenges and ultimately making it more productive, efficient, and effective.
