Enhancing shopping center efficiencies
Owner of two of Europe’s largest shopping centers—Westfield London and Westfield Stratford City—doubles down on Security Center for enhanced security, decision-making, and operations.
The company
Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) owns and operates two of Europe’s largest shopping centers; Westfield London and Westfield Stratford City. The two landmark retail and leisure destinations annually attract over 73 million shoppers and generate £2.1bn in retail sales.
The challenge
Westfield Stratford City had been using Genetec™ Security Center for just over a year when Adrian Howles was appointed Security Manager in 2017. Although the system was already monitoring over 1,200 cameras covering 177,000m2 of retail floor space, he quickly recognized it had the potential to further enhance security, operations and cost efficiencies. The solution was subsequently rolled out at Westfield London and across 25% of the URW group’s sites.
The solution
Centralized Control
Genetec™ Security Center created a common interface and user experience for security staff across both London sites—driving economies of scale in training and more aligned incident response.
Cloud-Ready Solution
Westfield UK still runs most security infrastructure on-premises, but in the longer term, the team expects to migrate more of this to the cloud to improve cost savings and system resilience.
Streamlined Operations
Westfield’s Delivery Management System (DMS) integrates with the ALPR system of Security Center, seamlessly granting access to approved delivery vehicles into the right service yards.
Beyond Security
Deployment of Genetec™ Mission Control has standardized operational procedures across both sites, while Genetec™ Clearance has simplified GDPR compliance for video sharing with third parties.
“The value was clear from the outset and it was immediately apparent that Genetec would be an important strategic partner for today and tomorrow. The platform is comprehensive, intuitive, and, as part of our five-year strategy, the open architecture gives us so many options.”
Adrian Howles, Security Manager, URW
Results
Today, Security Center is fast becoming the platform of choice for the wider group. Security Center unifies video surveillance, access control and analytics to accelerate incident response to thefts, missing children and other health and safety incidents. On a site-by-site basis, the URW teams choose Security Center for its ease of use and ability to evolve and grow in line with each center’s needs.
Using the Genetec Federation feature, the teams can also monitor multiple sites from a single platform. This allows them to build centralized control rooms which further enhances resilience and costing efficiencies. “Front-line security is an all-encompassing role so we rely on technology to support our people in responding predictably and effectively to whatever gets thrown at them,” explains Adrian.