A Swedish video firm providing security has on its sights the business sectors in Dubai involving retail, transportation, aviation, education and financial sectors as they feel consumers are now accepting technology to ensure security in daily activities.
Axis Communications, a global provider of Internet protocol- or IP-based video solutions based in Lund, Sweden, noted that Dubai’s construction boom, ongoing airport and metro-train projects and vibrant financial activities will help hasten the company’s growth.
David Gorman, loss prevention expert at US firm David Gorman and Associates, said that “honest” customers don’t mind going into a shopping store laden with surveillance cameras. It’s the thieves that would mind such things.
Axis’s sales manager for MENA (Middle East and North Africa), Baraa Al Akkad, said the company expects more clients from the retail sector, considering what experts disclosed that theft usually happens in shopping stores.
Already, Axis MENA has Fifth Saks Avenue Dubai as its biggest client in the retail sector. It has also installed camera network systems in Dubai airports. Al Akkad said the Middle East together with Europe and Africa, or EMEA, accounted for 45 per cent of Dh598.5 million ($163 million), the latest annual global sales posted by Axis.
There is no record on retail theft in Dubai and the whole UAE, but experts said there could be cases here similar to those recorded in the US and Europe, where losses incurred due to stolen goods are being passed on to consumers.
US retailers said last year they lost Dh152.75 billion ($41.6 billion) due to “shrinkage”, or losses brought about by retail theft, organised retail crime, administrative error or point of sale (cashier) fraud. In Europe, shrinkage losses cost every consumer Dh370.49 (71.23 euros) in 2006.
