25 Mar 2009
 T-Mobile retail shop in UK
 T-Mobile has greatly reduced the threat of violence, robberies and theft across their high street retail outlets after installing Xtralis's ADPRO FastTrace

The challenge

When the German owned telecom giant T-Mobile burst on the UK retail scene a few years back they did it with such speed and efficiency that most people would be forgiven for thinking that T-Mobile has always been one of UK's largest Telecom Retail chains. Today the company have 129 retail outlets across the country with a plan to increase this to 170 before the year ends.

While opening new retail stores at such speed is a challenge for any organisation, it seems an even more daunting task to provide for the ongoing security of employees and property in terms of preventing violence, robberies and theft. However, when talking to Doug Cook, Corporate Security Manager at T-Mobile, you get the feeling that everything is under control. "Security and loss prevention don't have to be a labour-intensive or costly", he says. "Of course it was important for us to find a way to automate security and provide central control and management of our operations. That aspect was at the very heart of our strategy when we first looked around for a suitable security solution to protect our retail outlets".

T-Mobile needed a remote managed CCTV system that could handle alarms, record incidents as well as be scalable to accommodate for the future growth of the company. In addition, T-Mobile wanted the security system to comply with the recent BS8418 security standard that has been introduced in the United Kingdom. This standard sets out the requirements that a CCTV system must comply with to receive adequate police support. Also, insurance companies are increasingly quoting adherence to this standard to be able to give a reduction in insurance premiums.

The solution

T-Mobile found that ADPRO FastTrace was the ideal solution to improve security across their high street retail outlets. Not only did ADPRO have the successful track record of delivering scalable, remote video monitoring to retail stores across Europe, but the solution did also comply with the important BS8418 security standard.

Following their decision to implement ADPRO FastTrace, T-Mobile now has the ability to monitor their retail outlets from one centralised video control room. Retail staff can notify the central control room when incidents occur through the use of Personal Attack Buttons, and the centralised video control room has the opportunity to respond to security incidents by using ADPRO's audio facility to speak directly to the intruder over the network.

The results

Through the use of ADPRO FastTrace, T-Mobile has greatly reduced the threat of violence, robberies and theft across their high street retail outlets. This has been made possible by ADPRO's integrated video, audio sound and alarm handling, which provides greater flexibility to security staff when handling security incidents and alarms.

Through the use of ADPRO FastTrace, T-Mobile has greatly reduced the threat of violence, robberies and theft across their high street retail outlets 

T-Mobile has also realised a significant cost saving in manpower, as employees using ADPRO FastTrace have the ability to review and manage a large number of remote sites from a central location.

Doug Cook comments; "The main benefit with handling security incidents through ADPRO FastTrace is the preventative effects it has on potential violence, robberies and theft. We are extremely happy with the ADPRO solution; it has proved to be a good security solution for employees and company assets alike".

Jeff Kitching, UK Sales Manager for ADPRO at Xtralis comments: "We are pleased that ADPRO FastTrace so successfully complied with the strict demands that T-Mobile set out. We hope that T-Mobile's application will set an example for other retail chains looking to realise cost savings and improve the protection of their assets".