Ava- Experts & Thought Leaders

Fury Motors has served the St. Paul, Minnesota area for more than 50 years. Founded in 1963 as a family-owned and operated business, the dealership offers the community a diversified mix of vehicles and services including new and pre-owned vehicles, financing, auto repair and maintenance. Currently, the dealership employs 115 people locally and is a one-stop-shop for all things automotive and trusted by the community. Committed to offering quality new and used vehicles for every taste and need, Fury Motors maintains a large and complete inventory of new Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep vehicles. With more than $50M in inventory on a 10-acre lot, security has taken on a whole new level of importance since the dealership was founded. Challenges faced With the face of retail ever-evolving, challenges commonplace for auto dealerships have not only intensified but evolved, too. The safety and security of employees, customers and assets has taken on a whole new meaning-making visibility into daily operations not just important but critical to business success. Now more than ever businesses require flexibility, agility and adaptability in their business solutions. This is particularly evident when it comes to solving security challenges. Fury Motors is no exception. The dealership realised simply recording security events as they happened was no longer enough. It needed to take a proactive stance on protecting its assets. Security of assets and operations To provide perspective, Fury Motors’ video security system required constant monitoring to capture events that were time and cost-prohibitive even with a monitoring company. And, if they could afford to have someone watch the cameras 24x7, human observations are subject to error or oversight. Fury Motors relies on remote monitoring to protect its inventory and capture valuable insight As a result, most video footage was never viewed or put to practical use, so Fury Motors was missing valuable information that could improve the security of assets and its operations. With no guard on-site, Fury Motors relies on remote monitoring to protect its inventory as well as capture valuable insight into employee behaviour and customer service practices. When the dealership turned to Global Axiom and Ava, a unified security company, it was losing $7K+ a month to internal theft and operational inefficiency above and beyond losses and damage to inventory. Global Axiom Remote Monitoring powered by Ava Aware Fury Motors realised that it could and should get more value from its remote monitoring service including its intelligent video security system and footage. The dealership turned to Global Axiom for a monitoring service coupled with Ava Aware to provide the perfect solution to stay a step ahead of criminals and potential losses. And even more importantly, it gives Fury Motors the data intelligence to take business operations to a whole new level with greater efficiency and resource optimisation. Fury Motors needed a new approach to security. Specifically, a system to capture, analyse and present the big picture data. Everything from monitoring people and assets on the outdoor car lots to technicians doing oil changes in the service bay to the handling of incoming parts and inventory after hours. Video monitoring solution Combination of Global Axiom’s remote monitoring expertise and Ava Aware technology is unprecedented  The dealership’s new intelligent video monitoring solution uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning bringing a new level of agility and flexibility to monitoring services allowing Fury Motors’ security operators to quickly review footage from past incidents, increase situational awareness and respond time to evolving situations and capture trend data for developing strategies and making data-driven decisions to prevent future problems. The combination of Global Axiom’s remote monitoring expertise and powerful Ava Aware technology is unprecedented. Ava Aware allows Fury Motors to accelerate investigations by searching objects and events of interest with speed and precision. Critical when managing $50M+ in inventory. Four important Ava differentiators  Proactive threat detection Ava’s intelligent algorithms and self-learning detect abnormal behaviour in specific Fury Motors scenarios and alerts operators in real-time. It intelligently highlights what’s truly relevant from all Fury Motors’ cameras, in real-time, all the time. Powerful search using machine learning Fury Motors is now able to search by event and similarity to perform appearance and image detection powered by machine learning capabilities. The dealership is now able to comb through countless hours of video in seconds. Critical in pre-empting theft and invaluable in managing operational efficiency. Directional audio analytics Fury Motors’ dealership is expansive with $50M in inventory on-site. The dealership needed a solution like Ava Aware to provide 360-degree coverage with Ava’s innovative acoustic sensors. The cameras identify specific sound patterns to determine the type of sound and its direction, and sends instant alerts to the Ava Aware video management system, providing Fury Motors’ security operators with a complete overview of the surroundings. Enhanced business and operational insights Fury Motors security and operations teams now have more situational awareness and insights. The dealership can monitor and count people and vehicles, watch smart maps to understand hot spots or high traffic areas to manage occupancy and shift scheduling and ultimately, improve customer service. Improved operational efficiency Fury Motors is positioned to carry on for another 50+ years as a leader in the St. Paul, Minnesota market. Management team is able to review past events, respond to changes in real-time and enhance operational efficiency with real data With its new improved monitoring service powered by analytics, the dealership’s management team is able to both review relevant past events but more importantly, proactively respond to situational changes in any environment via real-time alerts to prevent situations from occurring. Similarly, management is able to improve operational efficiency with real data. Ava’s technology Ava’s mobile technology allows investigators to immediately search footage across multiple video cameras from the field to decrease the time-to-target and save hours of investigation and suspect-tracking. Again, creating significant operational efficiencies and increasing the likelihood to prevent and/or recover lost assets. Video analytics Video analytics has also allowed Fury Motors to create customised alerts allowing the dealership to take a proactive and preventative response to a variety of problems. This need gained significance in the wake of health and safety guidelines put in place for COVID-19 and since has allowed Fury Motors to improve customer service by being more in tune with employee response times to customers on the lot. Data analytics The ability to detect both patterns and anomalies using Ava’s powerful data analytics is empowering Fury Motors to enforce compliance and respond to important company mandates in the short term while improving operations and protecting employees and customers in the long-term. Win-Win partnership “The Ava Aware solution combined with the Global Axiom remote monitoring service has been a tremendous win. Not only have our losses been eliminated but more importantly the headaches around dealing with those losses are gone as well. Our goal is for our customers to feel safe on our lot no matter when they choose to shop. They should feel comfortable that if they drop their car off for service or trust us with it for repair we will keep it safe. The Ava / Global Axiom solution provides this level of service and allows us to stay focused on serving our customers,” Fury Motor’s Owner, Tom Leonard.

As a multi-faceted community with several buildings, public safety services, healthcare facilities, schools, childcare, barracks, a commissary and a visitor’s centre, a typical U.S. Military base is a city in itself. Beyond the protection of armed forces personnel, the base is responsible for the safety of many civilians and civil servants. With such high standards and complex needs, U.S Military bases recognise the need for intelligent security systems that enable proactive monitoring, provide fast and smart forensics and comply with NDAA Section 889. Challenges faced by the US Military Base Inadequate situational awareness - The size and diversity of the military base pose a challenge. Past security measures led to gaps in coverage, leaving the base vulnerable to both internal and external threats. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic created the need for increased situational awareness. Without a real-time and dynamic understanding of the environment, it became increasingly difficult to enforce preventative measures to control and mitigate the risk of transmission. Slow incident response time - Speed is critical. Within the confines of the military base, the consequences of slow incident response time can be devastating and even sometimes deadly. The longer it takes for the Security Operation Centre (SOC) to gather, understand, and analyse the details of the incident, the greater the threat becomes. It became clear that responding to an Active Shooter, vehicle breach, or an assault, required immediate action that wasn’t available through their existing technology. Limited real-time analytic capabilities - The base wanted to prevent incidents from occurring rather than reacting after an incident has occurred. The traditional method of receiving an emergency call and responding after the fact was too costly. The US Base needed a platform that would provide the security team with automation notifications and alerts based on anomalies and rule-violations that were captured on video. NDAA-889 compliance - All military bases must meet the NDAA-889 compliance which states that the U.S. Government has banned specific telecommunications and video surveillance equipment utilising chips manufactured in China. Government contractors must help agencies remove/ replace banned equipment by Aug 12, 2021. Why Ava? One U.S. Military Base recently turned to Ava for an end-to-end intelligent security solution that would meet its full range of needs. Their requirements were a platform that was: Proactive - When there is a need to respond to a threat, the response needed to be immediate. Precise - On a base of this size, it was critical to pinpoint the exact location and nature of a security event in seconds - not hours or days. Simple - The system needed be straightforward to implement, manage and use within the existing infrastructure and cameras. Ease of use saves time and lives. Scalable - The system needed to be able to scale to thousands of cameras. Protecting military personnel and staff at the base Using Ava, operators can add maps of all the US Military Bases’ locations to gain situational awareness and insights Ava understood that the ability to protect military personnel and civilians that run the US Military Base is of utmost importance with even seconds being critical. Ava’s wicked-fast and smart forensic searches and powerful analytics transform the manually intensive examination of massive surveillance footage into accurate and useful results within mere minutes. Security operators are using powerful appearance, event, or image search functions to narrow down and track people or objects of interest. Using Ava, security operators can add maps of all the US Military Bases’ locations to gain situational awareness and insights. Each map can be configured and includes camera views, alarm views, as well as the ability to track people and objects as they move around the campus. Only Ava could meet their challenges by providing: Advanced Situational Awareness: Powered by Ava’s Smart Presence, the company’s use of AI and machine learning allows security personnel and operators to detect anything unusual at any time. Ava Aware VMS understands perimeters and behaviours, identifies, classifies, and tracks people of interest, vehicles, or other objects to send alerts before threats escalate. Operators now receive immediate alerts on unidentified loud noises including the exact source of the sound through microphones. The US Military Base’s security teams are now able to stop threatening actions, before there is damage to property or people. Rapid Incident Response: Powered by Ava’s Spotlight, video streams change dynamically to bring only the relevant feeds to the attention of the operator. Real-time alerts and notifications show up on the video wall to describe the incident, the time, and place it occurred. Using Ava’s Smart Search, the base is able to search by event and similarity to perform appearance and image detection powered by machine learning capabilities to comb through countless hours of video within seconds. Real-time Analytics: Ava provided the US Military Base with threat detection and notifications in real-time and uses intelligent algorithms and self-learning to detect abnormal behaviour. The platform will alert the base’s security operators in real-time. It will intelligently highlight what’s relevant from all of the US Base’s cameras, in real-time, all the time. NDAA Compliant - Ava’s video hardware is TAA (Trade Agreement Act) Compliant, enabling any base to be fully NDAA 889 compliant. Ava’s solution provided operational efficiencies, such as: Seamless integration with existing cameras - Whether a military base is replacing all or some of their cameras, Ava Aware VMS easily integrates into and enhances existing cameras with the same AI capabilities. Now, existing ONVIF cameras are enhanced with analytics such as object detection, people and vehicle count, similarity based searching and more. By linking all existing cameras into a larger, AI-based video analytic platform, the base can leverage these powerful analytics across ‘all the cameras, all the time’. Access Control Integration - Ava’s solution easily integrates into access control, remote monitoring, and existing infrastructure. Monitoring the entire military base can be done as part of a single video management system. Scalable - The platform can easily be clustered to meet the growing needs of a base, from hundreds to thousands of cameras. Deployment simplicity - Ava’s system is designed for overall simplicity and readiness for deployment. With security cameras that were ready to go, fully loaded with out-of-the-box Ava Aware software, the base could easily replace cameras in a phased implementation, minimising installation time and eliminating downtime. Ava’s simplified licencing/pricing model further simplified deployment. Plug and play configuration Plug and play configuration removes the need for user names and passwords The same simplicity extends to maintaining scalable management within a base’s group configuration policies. Plug and play configuration removes the need for user names and passwords, pre-configuration steps, and default settings. And finally, the base chose the Ava system for its general ease of use. Security operators now have access to detailed camera information, activity logs, and advanced video adjustments in a single, user-friendly screen view. Set up for success with intelligent video security The US Military Base is now set up for success with an end-to-end intelligent video security system that will scale with their needs. Highlights include: Camera installation, which will put the base into full compliance with NDAA-889. The US Military Base now has the highest level of security, to protect against the vulnerabilities of the connected world. The equipment has end-to-end encryption, factory-installed certificates, and records detailed audit trails of both operators and administrators to assist with any other compliance requirements. Security operators have gone from having ‘data overload’ to easily and quickly accessing ‘actionable insights’ to drive more confident and proactive security decisions. By leveraging powerful analytics, the base’s operators are able to respond in real-time and investigate incidents faster and with fewer resources. Operators are able to act on the system’s identification of objects, events, anomalies, and similarities that detect issues as they unfold. Furthermore, operators also have full occupancy insight to manage the flow of people and traffic across the base, in support of COVID-19 rules and regulations. Ava Smart Presence includes a people and vehicle counter to track objects in real-time, allowing for historical analysis and reporting. Configurable maps of all locations provide instant situational awareness and insights. The US Military Base seamlessly integrated the new system with existing access controls and non-banned cameras to cost-effectively meet the mandate and fully leverage analytics across the entire security system. Security teams at the base can trust in a powerful security solution that doesn’t inadvertently contain technology that poses a new threat. Whether enhancing existing cameras with advanced video analytics, replacing the entire video security system to meet the NDAA mandate, or creating a solution from scratch, the U.S. Military and supporting agencies can benefit from Ava’s secure cameras and leverage Ava’s powerful analytics for the highest levels of proactive security.

Protecting commercial properties is complicated and goes beyond safeguarding people and property. Security professionals respond to the needs of the business, staff, contractors, and visitors and deal with the realities of property damage, theft, and disgruntled employees. Ava helps the team react to anomalies and policy enforcement in real-time. Instead of merely investigating incidents, organisations can take the necessary steps to prevent them. Spotlight brings relevant feeds to the operator’s attention and triggers real-time alerts to address threats before they escalate. Leverage integrated video and audio analytics to give an enhanced understanding of the camera feeds. Respond to loitering challenges, access anomalies, theft incidents, fires, and more. Identifying suspicious people Smart Search allows operators to search by appearance, events, objects, similarity, or image. Recovering lost or stolen objects, identifying suspicious people like unescorted visitors, investigating health incidents or damage to the property, performing cleaning crew inspections now take minutes instead of hours. Combine with access control to identify tailgating or fire or active shooter scenarios To gain occupancy insights, operators can leverage Ava Aware’s unique Map view with Smart Presence. By adding floor plans and maps of premises, people and vehicles appear as dots in their precise on-site locations. Operators can see live footage as they move on the cameras’ fields of view. Combine with access control to identify tailgating or fire or active shooter scenarios. Connect Ava Aware to the cloud to achieve easy and simple deployment and access from anywhere in the world. Share links of recorded video with team members, claim investigators, and law enforcement, regardless of whether they have admin access to Aware or not. Get a secure download of video files in a standard mp4 format with digital watermarking for authenticity. Key benefits delivered are as follows: Integrate with existing cameras Hundreds of hours saved in forensic searches Add access control to extend capabilities Video & metadata storage remain on-premises Full site survivability and local access Increase operational productivity and reduce facility costs Distribute heat and cooling efficiently, optimise cleaning and workplace productivity through hot-desking insights Use people flow insights to manage people and vehicle queues efficiently Automatically decrease storage demands from all the recordings Reduce bandwidth consumption on critical links with AI-based optimisation Pay for what is needed, when it is needed, without the hassle of complicated licensing Up to 200 cameras per Ava appliance— small footprint support for larger facilities One-click Ava Dome and Ava 360 camera configuration Encrypted media at rest and in transit Automatic firmware updates Digital watermarking to prevent tampering Simple subscription model without hidden costs or analytics add-ons With a simple licencing model, Vaion always includes services and software upgrades. They no longer have to worry about integration charges, operator charges, API fees, or the complexity between small, medium, large, and enterprise services.

As much as we each seem to live in our own bubble, the reality is that everything is connected and we are all part of a greater whole. So it is with the security market, which can be both inward-focused and also play a role in the bigger societal picture. A couple of recent questions we posed to the Expert Panel Roundtable highlight how the security market can and should interact with society in general.

From lodging to food service to event planning to tourism, the hospitality market faces a large and growing range of security threats and challenges. Given the competitiveness of the market and the heightened flow of information about customer satisfaction via social media, there is more at stake than ever as hospitality professionals seek to ensure the safety and security of guests. We asked this week's Expert Panel Roundtable: What security challenges are impacting the hospitality market of today?

Security and privacy are often seen as being at odds. In effect, you must have less of one in order to get more of the other. However, newer technologies are eliminating the need to make such a difficult choice. Innovation is paving the way for greater security and protection in a climate where privacy concerns are also paramount. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: How can security address individual privacy concerns while increasing protection?