Peru, like the majority of countries in South America, believes in a distinctive security approach when adopting new surveillance solutions. One such example is the famous department store chain Oechsle, located throughout Peru's major cities. Oechsle's success is also analogous to Peru's economic revival.

Only a few years ago, Oechsle was an all but forgotten brand name. A once famous Peruvian symbol that had fallen on hard times and been forced to close its doors. But as the nation’s economic health has rebounded with an eight to nine percent annual GDP growth rate; the Oechsle brand was similarly re-energised with new owners and a host of new stores throughout Peru’s biggest cities – locations that host 80% of the country’s population.

Yet, just as Peru’s economy and Oechsle’s fortunes rebounded, one significant difference remained: security. Much had changed in the world since Oechsle’s initially closed its doors in the 1990s, but most South American companies were still not embracing technological improvement. The concept of CCTV is new to Latin American countries – Peru included. As recently as only a couple of years ago, many major corporations and businesses were relying almost exclusively on traditional security guards to protect their investments.

After careful consideration, Oechsle management decided upon three Hikvision products for their stores. The first was the DS-AF1-614X analogue speed dome. This camera was selected for a variety of reasons, but most importantly, this camera particularly filled the security needs for a department store. It has proven to be a great match for Oechsle because of the nature of the business. Oechsle needed an analogue solution that offered high resolution and was also extremely flexible.

Both high resolution and flexibility were, and are, key to Oechsle. This is based on the nature of the shopping environment: an open space with customers continuously moving to various areas. The DS-AF1-614X allows personnel in the store’s security centre to discretely follow individuals and eliminate obvious and offensive traditional tactics such as prompting a security guard to continually follow this person. This is accomplished by this Hikvision speed dome’s 1/4 inch Sony CCD, providing the essential ability to zoom onto questionable situations with a great degree of resolution; and 360° of endless pan range, providing the ability to discreetly monitor groups or individuals without their knowledge.

Additionally, Oechsle management opted for two Hikvision standalone DVR units – the DS-9116 HDI-S and the DS-9108HDI-S. Both DVRs have greatly enhanced security efficiency and productivity at Oechsle’s many stores throughout Peru. As with Hikvision’s speed dome camera, this DVR revolution has changed the way that security departments now approach these matters. In Peru, security video is generally stored for one month, but the DS-9116HDI-S and the DS-9108HDI-S allow Oechsle to easily exceed this. In fact, with up to 8 hard discs and 16 terabytes of memory, Oechsle can store more than 2 months of footage on one DVR alone.

Besides benefits such as this, easy-to-use functionality, and an overall high standard of quality, Oechsle’s security department was greatly pleased with an additional benefit: the ability to view high-resolution video in order to settle customer disputes, and if needed, to provide as evidence in cases of theft or fraud.

While these security upgrades, for both Oechsle and Peru, mark a great advancement in a short period of time, the trend is not to act slowly, in fact it is gaining momentum.

Already, there are plans for Oechsle to incorporate additional Hikvision products for its future security needs. One such plan is to upgrade to Hikvision IP cameras. These high resolution cameras will allow text overlay of purchasing info from POS machine. In effect, Hikvision can help Oechsle prevent a common fraud tactic throughout Peru – when a customer switches price tags, and pays for a very expensive item with the price tag of a substantially cheaper product.

Furthermore, once an optical cable infrastructure is constructed throughout Peru’s larger cities, Oechsle intends to utilise Hikvision technology to link all of its department stores together. Currently, high-speed internet is not reliable in Peru; and as such, the integration of optical cable will better allow coordination between regional department stores, and between these department stores and corporate headquarters.

Throughout Peru, security improvements have recently taken big steps towards modernising successful companies such as Oechsle. If this trend continues, Hikvision will be there to help and meet any future goals that may arise.