ChannelPost speaks with Hadi Rayess, Senior Director of Sales -Middle East at Avigilon about the regional surveillance market.
How has your association been with Middle Eastern markets?
Avigilon has a strong presence in the Middle East and a long history of helping our customers successfully deploy advanced security solutions to enhance safety. Working closely with our valued integrators in the region remains a top priority for us. We recently participated in Intersec 2018 held in Dubai that further provided us with the opportunity to connect with customers from many different sectors from the Middle East market. At the event, we also showcased our latest products and technologies.
How would you assess the surveillance market landscape in the region?
The Middle East is known for being at the forefront of innovation, and with this there is a strong demand for artificial intelligence technology. We continue to introduce new AI-based technologies, including our ‘Appearance Search’ and ‘Unusual Motion Detection’ technology, which help our users gain valuable insights from their surveillance systems.
We have also seen a demand for high resolution cameras in the Middle East as well as cameras that are designed for short and long range detection in a wide range of lighting environments.
What new products are your planning to introduce in this market?
Avigilon is known for delivering quality products and technology that exceed our customers’ expectations, and for offering solutions that suit the specific needs of our customer’s site. As we evolve our technology, we continue to develop easy-to-use, video analytics ready hardware and software solutions with our integrators in mind.
As mentioned above, one of the newest technologies we’re excited to introduce is our Unusual Motion Detection technology, which brings a new level of automation to surveillance and is designed to reveal events that may have otherwise been missed. Without any predefined rules or setup, UMD technology is able to continuously learn what typical activity in a scene looks like, and then detect and flag unusual motion. This allows operators to search through large amounts of video faster, as UMD focuses their attention on the atypical events that may need further investigation, helping to reduce hours of work to minutes.
Which industry verticals drive your growth in the region?
Our security solutions are relevant across a range of verticals, including airports, education, stadiums, and logistics. In the retail sector, for instance, Arabian Centres, Saudi Arabia’s largest retail operator, recently selected Avigilon as a new security standard across its retail properties to help protect customers and prevent retail losses. Turkey’s world-renowned Vodafone Park stadium, home of Beşiktaş J.K, has also installed a complete Avigilon solution that includes 7K (30 MP) cameras and ACC software to help protect spectators. Our solution allows operators to more efficiently monitor and track activities.
What would you like to say to your partners and customers after your recently announced agreement to be acquired by Motorola Solutions?
This acquisition will bring Avigilon’s advanced video surveillance and analytics platform to the rapidly evolving public safety workflow, while also expanding Motorola’s portfolio with new products and technologies for commercial customers. It has allowed us to bring new opportunities to Avigilon, helping us accelerate our innovation and provide even more value to our customers. Our partners can look forward to extending into new segments of commercial markets business to industries such as oil and gas, transportation, utilities, manufacturing and higher education.
