Doing business and becoming a successful entrepreneur never happens without a challenge. You need to be flexible, creative and change your route when the situation so requires. We ask our community of mobility entrepreneurs how they adapted their actions in Rerouted.
Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co, Ltd., a world-leading video-centric smart IoT solution and service provider, is the world’s second largest video surveillance manufacturer. The transportation industry is one of Dahua Technology’s key businesses, mainly involving urban roads, airports, railroads, highways, parking lots, ports, bus industries’ video surveillance and management.
Jack Jie is a solution engineer in the transportation industry, and is mainly responsible for developing Dahua Technology's transportation industry solutions in overseas market. We asked him how he rerouted his business.
Intertraffic:
Has your day changed?
‘Yes. Dahua Technology puts employee safety first. For countries and regions with severe pandemics, we encourage employees to comply with the regulations of local governments, work from home and communicate via online platforms such as video conferencing, webinar, etc.’
‘As for China headquarters, our access control system installed at different entrances of our office park has introduced thermal body temperature monitoring and mask recognition, providing a non-invasive way to check the body temperature of our employees and visitors. People with abnormal temperature and not wearing masks are not allowed to let in and will be double checked by a medical professional. Other safety protocols such as hand sanitizer stations, lift and public area disinfect, etc. were provided on a daily basis to strengthen the security level of the working area. We also closed the meeting room and cafeteria, as well as reduced capacity limits in the lift and canteen.’
‘Secondly, as a company, we have advanced online platforms to engage not only with our employees, but also with our partners and customers. For example, we do webinars/online trainings to deliver the product/solution messages to our customers. We have modern video conferencing systems as well that we can use for internal communication.’
Intertraffic:
How did this outbreak affect your business?
‘Due to the successive outbreaks of the pandemic in various countries around the world, the entire security industry has been affected. While facing the challenges, the rapid growth in demand for thermal body temperature monitoring solutions has also brought opportunities to us. Dahua Technology has utilised its long-term technological accumulation to quickly respond to market needs and provide customers with its highly accurate thermal body temperature monitoring solution including thermal camera, Access Control Temperature Monitoring station etc, which have been widely used in airports, transit hubs, business places, education establishments and other key sectors in the world.’
‘These efforts have provided strong guarantee for global resumption of work and production, enhanced mutual trust with customers, and also contributed to our business. This is also a perfect example of the company to fast normalise its resource in responding to dramatic external change.’
‘For the transportation industry particularly, business was affected negatively in the first half of 2020, but things are getting promising in the second half. Take Moscow projects as an example. In recent years, Russia has been vigorously developing safe cities, improving the level of urban safety. As a technology vendor for quite a few government projects, Dahua Technology has been providing innovative and quality products and services to those projects. During the pandemic, the projects were all postponed. Now they are partially resumed, and the remaining is expected next year.’
Dahua Thermal Temperature Monitoring Solution applied in El Dorado International Airport @Colombia (left), Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport @Lebanon (middle) and Harrow International School @Thailand (right).
Intertraffic:
Did the virus result in new opportunities or smart solutions?
‘Facing the unfavourable factors in the external environment, all Dahuaers have been working hard together to proactively promote the strategic products, key products and software products, optimise product structure, strengthen refined management of business processes, enhance operation quality, with an aim to achieve a sustainable and steady development of the company's business.’
‘And yes, challenges do come with opportunities, even the COVID-19 pandemic, and the most significant will be the wide application of thermal technology. Take Dahua Smart Public Bus Solution as an example. Dahua Technology adapted thermal technology into the traditional public bus solution, and empowered the solution with new functionalities including high accuracy temperature monitoring, mask detection, etc. Dahua Smart Public Bus Solution better meets the local communities’ needs of detecting passengers with abnormal skin temperature and carrying out local government directives of wearing masks, being an ideal choice for bus companies and institutions to perfectly fit into the new normal.’
Dahua Smart Public Bus Solution
‘The pandemic also accelerated the application of face recognition technology. Take face recognition access control as an example. The traditional verification methods are mostly using cards, passwords, etc. Although biometric technologies such as face recognition, fingerprints recognition have been developed for many years and various manufacturers have also promoted them, it is still difficult to realise mass popularisation in many traditional overseas markets, as privacy and security are still major user concern.’
‘With the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, touchless access with face recognition is gaining popularity, especially products that combine temperature measurement and touchless access control. These products speed up the popularisation of face recognition in smart building solutions. What’s more, these products also provide a data basis for urban management.’
‘Notably, in the first half of 2020, our overseas business achieved a revenue of RMB 4.049 billion, accounting for 41.15% of the total operation revenue and representing a year-on-year increase of 8.87%.’
‘It is also worth mentioning that for the coming Intertraffic Dahua Technology will demonstrate its latest products and solutions including AI smart road monitoring cameras, radar speed measurement products, outdoor parking space detection products, and the new eco-camera for road monitoring is one of the key products for the tradeshow. The biggest feature for the new camera is that there is no light pollution. It can capture high-quality full-colour images at night without using white flash lights or external strobe lights. This efficiently solves the problem of night light pollution which is a concern by the users.’
Intertraffic:
What do you see in long run?
‘According to the latest report from OMDIA (formerly known as IHS), the total revenue of video surveillance equipment market in 2020 will drop by 2.5%. In the short term, various business sectors may be affected more or less because the impact of the pandemic may still last for a while. In addition, there are also many uncertainties in the international situation and other external factors, so it’s hard to predict the situation of next year.’
‘On the other side, the pandemic can only hold development of the industry in short run. We do believe the development of a large number of new-generation information technologies such as multi-dimensional perception, 5G applications, artificial intelligence, and big data will continue and accelerate the industry upgrade. In the context of a significant increase in labour costs and uncertain risks in labour-intensive industries, enterprises will put more emphasis on intelligence, informatisation, automation transformation and lean management. Therefore, the pandemic may accelerate the industry’s technological integration and upgrading, develop new ideas in terms of business, users, and business models, and create new commercial value.’
