Family-owned conglomerate
A family-owned group consolidating CCTV across four subsidiaries in Abu Dhabi, where the holding company CFO required a single five-case paper to release CapEx from the group budget.
Business Case · CFO Sign-off · Abu Dhabi
A defensible AI CCTV business case the CFO will actually approve
The CFO of an Abu Dhabi enterprise does not approve an AI CCTV investment because the cameras are clever. The paper that wins approval is structured around five questions: what is the problem we are solving, what options were considered, what does each option cost over its life, what benefits accrue, and what are the risks if we proceed and the risks if we do not. This page is for the security manager, facilities director or operations head who has been asked to put a business case to the finance committee for an AI CCTV project. Emirtech does not write your business case for you; we do supply the technical and cost inputs in a form that drops cleanly into the standard five-case structure, so the document the CFO sees is grounded in real numbers rather than vendor optimism.
ADMCC ApprovedIndependent IntegratorFree Site SurveyDocumented Audit Trail
Why the business case has to be honest about benefits as well as cost
A business case that overstates benefits is rejected on the second read. A finance committee can pattern-match exaggerated security claims at a glance, and once trust is lost in one section the whole paper carries less weight. The discipline that gets AI CCTV projects approved in Abu Dhabi is the opposite: state the problem narrowly, restrict the benefits claim to what can be measured, and price every cost category over the asset life.
The strategic case opens with the operational or regulatory pressure driving the investment — ADMCC compliance gap, incident pattern in the loss-prevention log, insurer requirement, audit finding, expansion to a new site. The economic case sets out at least three options including the do-nothing baseline and a refurbish-existing option, with a costed TCO across a 5- or 7-year horizon following the conventions of UAE Corporate Tax depreciation rules and IFRS 16 where the option is structured as an operating lease.
The commercial case names the proposed contracting route (single supplier RFP, framework call-off, two-stage open tender), the standards the supplier will be held to (ADMCC requirements, BS EN 50132 / IEC 62676, ONVIF profiles, ISO/IEC 27001:2022 cyber controls, UAE PDPL data handling), and the key contractual safeguards (acceptance criteria, AMC ceiling, exit clause). The financial case lays out CapEx phasing, OpEx run rate, and sensitivity to two or three realistic variables (storage retention, analytics scope expansion, AMC escalation). The management case names the project sponsor, the steering group, the risks register, and the post-implementation review schedule. A business case structured this way is approved on its merits, or rejected on a specific point the sponsor can address — not deferred in a fog of vendor claims.
The Emirtech approach — clean technical inputs the finance team can trust
We treat the business case as the buyer’s document, not ours. What we contribute are the technical and cost inputs in a form that maps to the five-case structure: a costed scope of works, a TCO worksheet with sensitivity ranges, a written risk note covering technical and compliance risks, and references to the standards the design will follow. The buyer then assembles these into the paper their finance committee expects to see.
The cost inputs are tied to a real site survey rather than to a desk estimate. For numbers benchmarked to current Abu Dhabi pricing across small, mid and enterprise projects, the AI CCTV cost guide is a useful sanity check. The wider procurement conversation lives on the AI Surveillance Hub.
- Costed scope of works mapped to BoQ line items: camera by zone, server, storage, licensing, cabling, civils, commissioning, training, AMC year-1 and AMC year 2-5
- Three options appraisal: do-nothing baseline with retained-risk cost, refurbish existing estate, full AI CCTV replacement — each priced over 5-year and 7-year horizons
- Benefits register restricted to measurable items: ADMCC compliance pass, insurance premium impact if confirmed in writing by broker, investigation time saved, incident detection rate improvement
- Risk register entries for technical (analytics underperformance on declared scenes), commercial (AMC escalation), and compliance (UAE PDPL DPIA gap) risks, with named mitigations
- Sensitivity analysis on retention period, analytics scope, and AMC inflation, so the CFO can see the cost band rather than a single point estimate
- Post-implementation review schedule with measurable acceptance criteria, so the project sponsor can show benefits realisation at year-1 and year-3 reviews
Use cases — the kinds of business cases we help build
The scenarios below are illustrative of situations a business case can be structured for, not summaries of specific engagements.
Listed company audit committee
A DFM-listed company whose audit committee asked for a documented benefits case before approving a CCTV refresh, with measurable KPIs at year-1 and year-3.
Insurance-driven refresh
An industrial operator whose insurer flagged inadequate CCTV at policy renewal, requiring a costed remediation plan as a condition of cover.
Expansion to new site
A hospitality operator opening a new property in Abu Dhabi, where the CCTV business case was packaged inside the wider opening CapEx submission to the board.
Answers
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does a credible business case take to assemble?
The timeline for the inputs pack is agreed in writing after the site survey. The buyer’s own drafting of the strategic, commercial and management cases adds further time depending on the internal review cycle.
What does the inputs work cost?
The site survey and the first costed scope of works are free. If the buyer asks for additional sensitivity modelling, options appraisal write-ups or a board-pack version, we quote an itemised written fee for that scope before starting.
What standards should the case reference?
ADMCC requirements and installer approval, BS EN 50132 and IEC 62676 for camera operational class, ISO/IEC 27001:2022 controls for cyber, UAE PDPL (Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021) for data handling, and IFRS 16 if the financing route is a lease. The exact set is tuned to the buyer’s sector.
Can Emirtech sign off the financial benefits claim?
No. Emirtech is an integrator. We are not chartered accountants, not licensed insurance brokers, and we will not validate insurance premium or tax benefit claims. Those need to be confirmed in writing by the buyer’s finance team, broker or auditor before the figures go into the business case.
How do we start?
Email [email protected] or call +971 55 651 7843 with the site list and the working problem statement. We will arrange a site survey, agree the inputs scope, and confirm in writing what will be delivered before any chargeable work begins.
Ready to secure your property?
Get a free site survey and no-obligation quotation from Abu Dhabi's ADMCC-approved security specialists.
Need a free site survey or quote in Abu Dhabi?
Talk to Emirtech's engineers — we reply the same working day across Abu Dhabi and Al Ain. CCTV, security, IT, AV and smart-building solutions.
Mon–Sat 8AM–7PM · [email protected] · Since 2018 · ADMCC-approved for security systems