Background
Leading Turkish luxury retail chain embarks on national expansion plans
Konyalı Saat is one of Türkiye’s leading independent retail chains in the luxury watches and jewellery sector, with 40 stores selling a wide selection of top brands and accessories. The chain has recently extended its portfolio with Longinesbranded stores, and the owner has ambitious plans to expand further, with four new outlets scheduled to be opened in the next half year and more to follow soon after.
To support this rapid, country-wide growth, video surveillance is a key management tool, with remote monitoring relied on for multiple benefits, including: ensuring security, improving staff performance, and allowing consistent control over activity across the branch network. Having a reliable and high-performance video system is essential for achieving consistently high customer service, sales performance, and minimizing losses.
Challenges
Remote management of branch operations is priority for store owners
The priority for the business owners is ensuring that every store is run by the best people – staff and managers who are not only trustworthy, but dedicated to providing a high standard of service and to strengthening the Konyalı Saat brand every time a customer comes in.
So, a centralised video solution was needed; but the systems previously installed, from another leading video vendor, were proving disappointing. In many of the stores they were failing to provide HD scene coverage without blind spots. And they lacked the functionality to support Konyalı Saat’s growth plans. In particular, the owners wanted to develop new efficiencies using video analytics and metadata, integrated with their wider retail ERP solutions. And they wanted to get more value from their video data, including improving product management and marketing operations. So, systems integrator Secom was asked to conduct a proof-of concept demonstration of a more powerful, but affordable solution using IDIS technology.
Solution
Affordable HD video coverage of stores, with advanced video analytics to add new value
The POC showed how complete HD surveillance of each store, without blind spots, could be most efficiently achieved using a single 12MP IDIS fisheye camera, plus either one or two 2MP IDIS 2.8mm fixed lens dome cameras. The owner opted to adopt the same configuration across all stores, and requested a similar set-up in Konyalı Saat’s warehouse and workshop, where high value watches are repaired, serviced, and calibrated.
The fisheye provides comprehensive overview of each store, providing the same coverage as three or more conventional fixed lens cameras, while the domes located at entrances capture video to support people counting and other analytics functions. These AI capabilities are provided by an IDIS AI Box for Retail (DV-1304), a powerful device add-on device that can transform any IDIS system and deliver functions including people counting, queue monitoring, heat mapping and occupancy monitoring.
An IDIS HDMI Encoder enables POS integration, with cash register screen recordings overlaid on video footage and time synched with all recorded video data, allowing all transactions to be fully investigated and audited.
Footage is recorded locally at each store on an 8-channel IDIS DR2508P NDAA-compliant NVR, and the system can also be operated in each branch using IDIS Center VMS, as well as being controlled and managed centrally with IDIS Solution Suite (ISS) Expert.
Results and Benefits
Failing system transformed into powerful seamless solution
The end-to-end IDIS DirectIP solution - with rapid installation, low maintenance burden, and easy operation – proved its value in the first eight stores, and will now be adopted across the full Konyalı Saat estate, currently exceeding 50 stores.
The automated people counting and heatmapping capability provided by the IDIS AI Box replaces a stand-alone system which required manual collection and analysis of data. The DV-1304 with its at-a-glance dashboard has transformed the company’s ability to understand the sales performance of each store, measured against peaks and troughs of customer flow.
As the IDIS solution is expanded to cover each new store, more essential video analytics data, including people counting metrics, will be transmitted via IDIS Solution Suite, and collected in a Microsoft SQL Server for sharing with a retail ERP solution. This will allow the Konyalı Saat to analyse sales turnover and visitor numbers by day, month, and week, making it possible to accurately evaluate store performance, marketing campaigns, product management and staff efficiency more accurately than ever before.
"We have been deeply impressed with every aspect of the IDIS solution, from the quality and performance of the fisheye cameras to the added value provided by the AI Retail Box and simple integration of video data with our POS. IDIS technology is perfectly suited to the demands of high-end retail environments."
Yunus Bürge
Information Technology Manager,
Konyalı Saat
