London 2012 – golds, guards

Sunday saw the end of the London 2012 Olympics and to repeat the favoured cliché of many pundits; the end of “the best ever games.”

Sunday saw the end of the London 2012 Olympics and to repeat the favoured cliché of many pundits; the end of “the best ever games.” The event was one of the largest security operations Britain has ever seen with an estimated security budget of $837 million. Despite a few high profile security hiccups it is important to remember the Olympics passed without major incident.

In an event such as the Olympics a significant manned security presence will always be required. Electronic physical security such as video surveillance, access control and remote monitoring also plays an important supporting role in the security ecosystem. In vertical markets such as education, retail and commercial, electronic physical security equipment is helping to supplement manned guarding. Yet, at events with high footfall, the requirement for manned guards remains high. Additionally it is estimated that due to London’s existing security infrastructure the amount of money spent on electronic physical security equipment at London 2012 was proportionally less than at previous Olympic Games.

Now with the arrival of the Olympic flag in Rio, the world’s Olympic spotlight will focus on Brazil. It is unclear how much of the Rio 2016 security budget will be allocated to forms of electronic physical security although it is likely to be a larger proportion than in London. However, with the Brazilian security market already showing impressive growth (its video surveillance equipment market is growing at around 20% year-on-year) the Rio games is expected to be only a small driver of the regions’ overall growth.

Josh Woodhouse is a market analyst at IMS Research (IHS Inc.)