Bear with me. Below is yet a fourth write-up from one of Envysion’s Account Executives. This also followed an introductory meeting with a different prospective customer. I edited out the names and changed some details to “protect the innocent.” This one also happened recently. Managed Video Surveillance-hmmmm…sound interesting?

Very good demo on 01-22. [The cutomer] was anxious to see the capabilities of our solution. We had previous discussions about how Envysion Video services could benefit both their corporate locations and the franchisees.

This brand has approximately 600 corporate and 5,000 franchisee locations.  They are currently using [___] for the corporate locations. The franchisees have been securing their own video surveillance providers which present challenges because of their requirement for integration with approved POS systems and PCI compliance. The person I met with is responsible for technology evaluation and certification for corporate and selecting preferred technology vendors for the franchisee organizations. They currently have four approved POS vendors and require technology solutions to be compatible with their POS systems. They have a VSAT network for all of their corporate locations. Franchisees secure their own broadband suppliers consisting of DSL, cable and VSAT when terrestrial services are not available.

Envysion’s CTO addressed the customer’s questions regarding PCI compliance, POS integration and bandwidth utilization. [The customer] seemed to be enamored with our reporting capabilities and ease of administration. He also values the Software as a Service (SasS) proposition. He expressed a desire is to have a video solution certified with their approved POS systems. He also requested we send them an EnVR to their lab at HQ for testing.

The customer asked very good questions about the operational aspects of our systems and readily grasped the ease of use and access and management of the system. Save to the Core and bandwidth optimization seem to be well received.

Next Steps – Pricing was requested for 4, 8 and 16 camera configurations and a test logon which was provided on 1-23. We are shipping a EnVR this week. We are also scheduling a follow-up with the expanded organization and doing a demo for one of their major franchisees

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Below is a third write-up from one of Envysion’s Account Executives. It followed a different introductory meeting with a prospective customer. I edited out the names and changed some details to “protect the innocent.” All three happened within the past week. Powerful trend perhaps?

The meeting was with the person in charge of delivering a suite of products that allow the franchisees to leverage useful technology to manage their bottom line. He supplies an enrollment pipeline of endorsed technology vendors.

The customer is a 3,500 US location chain headquartered in the Midwest with 100% franchised operations

POS systems are a mix of Panasonic, Aloha, standard cash register and “cigar boxes.”

The only technology that is mandated moving forward is [a particular point of sale system] and the franchisee must use the gift card partner. The reason they decided on standardized is to be able to centrally-manage all product movement data.

PCI is a must

The customer “guessed” that 40% of franchisees currently have high speed broadband

Being able to supply “soup to nuts” offering that combines Envysion’s service with a managed services provider would be a big plus

Franchise video platform project and RFP will be released late spring 2008.  Customer will consider it a success if 1,000 – 2,000 franchisee locations participate in the program. Franchisee hot buttons:

• Video surveillance with POS integration
• Integration with other BSS, IE alarm/central station integration
• Remote video accessibility
• Above store real time reporting capability
• One stop shopping for security and broadband type of systems

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Below is a second write-up from one of Envysion’s Account Executives. It followed a different introductory meeting with a prospective customer. I edited out the names and changed some details to “protect the innocent”. See any patterns?

The demonstration originally scheduled for 2:00PM CST was rescheduled to 10:00AM CST with 40 minutes notice due to last minute changes to the prospect’s scheduling. We were able to reorganize at the last minute to accommodate the prospect’s needs and complete the demonstration. Attendees were the VP of operations and the head of loss prevention.

Prospect Summary and Demo Highlights:

• This merchandizer is a 1,400 unit chain of clothing and accessories; all corporate owned. They currently have minimal CCTV in their store locations, but use extensive CCTV in their 6 distribution centers. All stores have DSL lines. All stores are utilizing a XBR data mining software for POS applications without video backup. They have 4 loss prevention field staff.
• They are planning on analyzing video in some locations to develop an internal ROI to sell to the executive management team. They are advocates of CCTV in the stores and it is high on their priority list, but they have to sell it higher on the corporate priority list. They are also looking at cross functional areas to get buy in from other departments, i.e. marketing.
• I have been an acquaintance of one of the guys for several years and have had numerous conversations with him in my past life. I was getting the impression from him that this demo was more of a courtesy to my persistence with him than a true interest in our offerings. As we progressed through the demo, the input we received for internal potential applications made it evident that we had their undivided attention and interest level.
• Customer Pains:
  • Cash refunds are this company’s number one contributor to internal theft. Company incurs loss of $300,000 per month. This equals 75% of their losses.
  • Company receives an unmanageable amount of exception daily.
  • Would like to be able to see video verification of coupon transactions; this would provide immediate benefit.
• Customer Wish List:
  • Video tied to a POS exception with a secondary trigger of motion, i.e. cash refund POS exception, but no customer or product present
  • Object tracking type video analytics, i.e. a video exception generated if motion shows a box being opened, but not if someone simply passes in front of the box as is with standard motion (ultimate wish is being tied into video analytics for object tracking in a way that does not currently exist in the market place)
  • “Favorite views” dashboard on the home page, IE click “favorites” and a specific set of cameras auto populate the viewing area.
  • Ability to view all video from centrally-managed area

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Below is a write-up from one of Envysion’s Account Executives. It followed an introductory meeting with a prospective customer. I edited out the names and changed some details to “protect the innocent”. I thought this might be interesting to those of you interested in the emerging video surveillance managed services market.

A tremendously positive, yet very lengthy meeting with [decision maker] from [major brand name] during the lunch hour(s) today. We got started a bit late (almost 1 pm), but we went until nearly 3:45 to make up for it! The only better thing that could have happened is if we walked out with a purchase order in hand for several thousand locations

In summary -

• They are taking a fresh look at Global Asset Protection Program from the entire lifecycle (suppliers, shipping, distribution, store level) – anything that could impact growth
• Very interested in our Software as a Service (“SaaS”) approach. Quote: “Knew that the video surveillance solution would go towards software only.”
• Customer recognizes that technology has leapfrogged since they implemented a basic loss protection solution some time back.
• Customer is extremely interested in gaining a system with the exception-based reporting we talked about – they have an XBR system today, yet still have to manually pull associated video to do any prosecutions or disciplinary actions. Many of the systems today have overlay Point of Sale (“POS”). Loved our concept with the following comments or issues:
  • Tight control on stuff getting “out” – may require dedicated server/network infrastructure
  • Secure and easy-to-use administrative features are a huge plus for Envysion
  • Save-to-core is a big draw
  • No one in company is doing demographics, new product/market success, but always talked about as “if we only had the right product”

This was a great starter meeting and there will be more over the next months. It will take some time before the path is fully understood, so this is a longer play for Envysion. Still, we are perfectly poised.

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