July 25th, 2003
A Secure Job for Netwatch co-founder David Walsh [Irish Examiner]
In the not too distant future companies may not need to employ on the spot security guards to guard their warehouses and offices overnight or on weekends anymore. That may seem like a scenario too good to be true but its not. The downside is, it isn't due to some marked decline in corporate crime levels (if anything, rates are increasing). It is down to some real improvements in the security industry.
One is in the form of Netwatch, a relatively new company based in Carlow, offering a revolutionary new security monitoring system. The company was formed last October by David Walsh, Niall Kelly and Kieran Morris and provides a system which is a kind of a cross between CCTV and a regular alarm system Many companies will already have both of these systems on their premises.
Netwatch goes further, however. It has two USPs (Unique Selling Points), basically. Firstly, instead of just recording your premises via security camera and identifying intruders after the robbery has taken place the Netwatch system (via the company's central command centre in Carlow) monitors your premises live via its camera. Secondly, thanks to a laser-like infra-red detector, the alarm system can detect somebody approaching your premises from as far away as 200 meters. What's more a speaker system allows the monitoring staff at Netwatch headquarters to address the potential intruder as they approach. Thinking that the voice is coming from within the building, the potential burglar should (in theory anyway) scarper, as it were. Walsh claims that that's exactly what has happened in every case when it's come into play so far. The technology was developed by an Australian company called vision systems.
The security sector marks a bit of a shift in Walsh's professional life; born in Tralee, his background is in agriculture - he even studied Agricultural Science at UCD. Previously he worked with the research company Ovamas, where he looked into the mass production of bovine embryos. After that he joined leading agricultural machinery supplier, Keenans. There, he headed up its Scottish-based operations, won the company's salesperson of the year award three times in a row and became group sales director.
When things started getting extremely difficult for most in the farming world a couple of years ago, thanks to the likes of BSE and Foot and Mouth, Walsh thought it a good time to start looking for a fresh challenge. He wanted to pioneer a new development in a different business sector - just as he'd help to do with his two previous employers (while at Keenan's the company produced a more profitable livestock feeding system for farmers).
"Niall had worked with me in the past (both previously worked in the agricultural sector) and had moved on and become an electronic engineer. He was constantly talking about this area of remote monitoring. I wanted a career change myself, and I really started to think about the security systems area when a mutual friend of ours had his work premises broken into. He went along to turn off the alarm and actually disturbed the burglars who then attacked him before fleeing. He wasn't seriously injured, but we started thinking that there must be some better way in this day and age to respond to alarm calls or check out if it's a false alarm or a police matter", he says.
"As if to prove just how much people are disillusioned with current security options, Netwatch's initial aims were to have 50 customers and a turnover of around €400,000 by the end of its maiden financial year. It is in fact on course to reach a turnover approximately €750,000 (presumably largely due to its ads currently airing on Sky Television). Its customer base already exceeds 100 in number and according to Walsh. The company boasts 99% success rate.
The potential of such a system is staggering. The cameras can make out a car registration plate from a quarter of a mile away. Every time Netwatch installs a camera package with a client in a new area, it will do a live demonstration for the local garda station, so it's known by them ahead of any action. Says Walsh "We can email footage we're watching on our cameras to the local Gardaí within three minutes of an incident happening. The whole area of security really has to change. Crime and break-ins are on the increase and even as the 'Celtic Tiger' stops roaring, more and more criminal activity is taking place. "Walsh also feels that the business community cannot continue to have total faith in the traditional burglar alarm system. In 1999 the Gardaí received 135,000 alarm calls from traditional burglar alarms going off. Out of those, some 117,000 were false alarms.
"In the UK, two or three police forces have come out and publicly stated that they will no longer respond to tradition alarms going off, unless there is verification of an actual crime haven taken place. I wouldn't be suprised if that will happen here also in the near future", he adds.
That would suggest that competition for Netwatch is going to become a lot tighter sooner rather than later. All the more reason then, to expand its operations, Walsh agrees. The company already has clients in Northern Ireland and does work for clients with secondary operations in Spain. Franchising the name out to interest parties in the UK market is a possibility - expansion there in some form is a definite plan.
"If you look at any technical magazine on digital recorders, nearly every one of them has the facility for someone to log in from a remote location. But what we're doing - where the site actually rings us when there's an activation - is totally unique. The probability of someone logging onto their cameras when someone is breaking into them is very low. In most cases, the owner chooses when to monitor. Our system is different in that it calls us when it detects activity. We're bridging the gap between intruder detection systems, like alarms and intruder prevention systems like security guards. Having four guards on your premises isn't cost effective" says Walsh. Netwatch's costs vary on size of premises, but an average 10-camera system, can be monitored for as little as €12 per day. The installation fee is around €12,000. We could do premises in South Africa and we'd get the alarm signal as fast as if the premises were in Carlow.
A recent security Expo in Birmingham heard that in traditional cases of security guards monitoring screens as much as 80% of activity is missed every 2 hours. Says Walsh, "Ever since the September 11 attacks people everywhere have become more security conscious. These also the fact that with the economy shrinking people are having to tighten their budgets and are looking at more cost-effective ways to protect their premises. And in terms of cost-effectiveness there really is no comparison to what we're offering."