Quantifying Benefits: How Facial Biometrics Deliver ROI in Security

Most companies that evaluate the Alcatraz AI Facial Authentication-as-a-Service platform see the benefits of utilizing a facial biometric to increase security and reduce friction in the access control process. What often needs to be clarified is the overall benefits of deploying Alcatraz versus the total cost of ownership. To help companies evaluate Alcatraz, we have built a comprehensive ROI calculator to point out several ways the solution provides benefits that outweigh the costs, leading to a positive return on investment. Although every case is unique, many Customers see a positive ROI in less than two years, sometimes even faster.

The Alcatraz ROI Calculator analyzes the following areas for potential savings:

• Savings in equipment, labor, and energy from using the Cloud versus on-premise servers
• Reduced labor costs by eliminating physical guards or enabling more productive deployment of guard staff
• Improving physical guard response efficiency
• Savings from reduced rebadging 

Savings by Moving to the Cloud

Often, decisions to deploy a solution based only on the software cost or the combination of hardware and software. Instead, companies should look at the total cost of ownership, including the costs of servers to host, update and apply patches, and backup methods and secure that solution. Another cost often overlooked is the cost of energy to power and cool the equipment running the solution. 

Hosting in the Cloud can eliminate nearly all these operational costs, while typically increasing uptime and improving data security.  This calculator allows prospective customers to input their real-world costs to see if the Cloud is a better choice for them.

Reduced Costs of Physical Guards

Many buildings employ guards in main lobbies or other places of ingress to validate that only the proper people enter, but people can be missed during busy times. Alcatraz validates authorized users more accurately than cards, which can be copied, shared, lost, or stolen, while also alerting and identifying tailgaters. Alcatraz also makes access truly frictionless, allowing authorized users to enter at walking speed. 

Many customers have been able to reduce their need for physical guards after deploying Alcatraz. Still, others report being able to redeploy the guards into more beneficial tasks than simply watching a door. This calculator estimates savings from reducing guard time, but can also be viewed from the perspective of repurposing guard time to more valuable activities.

Improving Guard Response Efficiency

The Alcatraz tailgating alerts described above notify the Access Control System of an unauthorized entry, which doesn’t happen without deploying Alcatraz. These alerts can inform the Security Team in real-time, resulting in time savings, and the system also sends a thumbnail image of the tailgater, allowing security professionals to identify the person of interest. Additionally, Alcatraz provides a door-level surveillance video stream to further validate authorized from unauthorized users. These features shave vital time off of typical responses by Security Teams.

Savings from Reduced Rebadging

We’ve all forgotten our access control credentials, suffering the inconvenience of getting a visitor badge that doesn’t provide access to all of the areas needed to do your job or the time spent getting a replacement card. Today, credentials aren’t just needed to get into work; they often enable us to use printers and other devices throughout the facility. 

This calculator attempts to capture both the hard costs of a replacement credential and the time lost by the Security professional and the employee to issue a replacement credential. Our use of this calculator has opened the eyes of many companies who were shocked at how many badges are replaced annually.

Real World Data

The Alcatraz AI ROI Calculator should be completed with data from a prospective customer to allow for an honest review of real-world examples versus the cost of the Alcatraz solution. We look forward to seeing the positive payback for each opportunity. Contact us today to set up an appointment to learn more about the Alcatraz AI solution and see the savings we can provide.

Book your meeting with Alcatraz AI and see your ROI!