Security Tools and
Their Unexpected Uses
Video surveillance isn’t new. Neither is intrusion
detection or access control. Yet although they’ve
been security staples for decades, their full
abilities are surprisingly rarely exploited. But
that’s beginning to change.
These days, business owners have started to think
more creatively about their security tools in order
to maximize their resources and capabilities – a
need small-business owners know especially well.
Propelled by economic difficulties, and becoming
more comfortable exploring technology than ever
before, more owners are leveraging their security
resources to give them better insights into running
a safer and smarter business.
Maximizing your security resources can be one rewarding way to extend your resources and visibility into your business.
// Video
Video surveillance is often used only after the fact in investigating an incident. But it can be leveraged far more astutely. With a 24/7 perspective on your day-to-day operation, it captures a visual story that can help you make smart decisions. Video surveillance can provide you with a great breadth of information, such as customer traffic flow, process flow and customer reactions toward your products, along with various time-based activities that statistical data simply cannot duplicate.
// Intrusion Detection
Real-time reports that show when your business is open and running lets you know who was first in and first out. This is critical management data when you’re analyzing managers and business disciplines, assessing customer service and investigating potential security or safety incidents.
// Access Control Systems
Far more revealing than your simple lock and key, having an access control system doesn’t just give you control of who can access your business. It can also reveal a great deal about your operation. Quality control, accountability and supervision have visibility when you are able to extract the data to see how your staff is moving throughout your company.
Your Security Devices Have Much More
Business Potential Than You Think
As any accountant would tell you, keeping track of what you spend can reveal a great deal about your business – where it can cut back; how it can grow. The same goes with your security tools. The information these tools monitor day in and day out can give business managers an astonishing amount of information, capturing details that aren’t often considered or even noticed. In particular, these three regular security devices can empower you with information that you likely didn’t know you already had:
For Business and Profit: 5 Ways to Maximize
Security Applications
1. Quality-Control Application
Most successful business owners pride themselves on quality. And rightly so: Consistent quality control is what differentiates good business practices from best business practices. As companies differ in their methods for assessing quality control, one thing is for certain: Checks and balances must be reviewed on a timely and consistent basis. Hence, video and access control are great tools for troubleshooting and validating processes – and even generating trails for audits.
2. Employee Training and Coaching
As a small-business owner or manager, your vast responsibilities can take an incredible toll on your time. Even so – as much as you might try – you can never be around 24/7. But when you’re not there, how can you help ensure that your employees deliver the quality you strive for? Or how can you know how much they’re catching on? When you use video supervision, you’ll be able to pay closer attention to such details and processes, impacting how you make hiring decisions or incorporate new procedures.
Moreover, such measures that encourage employees to focus on proper safety methods can help lower or eliminate the risk of fine incurrence – or more important – workers’ compensation costs.
3. Time Management
Certainly you know what your employees’ time is worth when you sign off on the weekly payroll, but what is your time worth? Mastering how to better monitor your own time, along with the time that you already pay for, can have an incredible effect on your company’s productivity – and your sanity. The most productive business managers know that their time and energy are finite – and that even the simplest things can disrupt the critical time they need to recharge. Today’s security applications can provide the timesaving clarity that is necessary to help take the right kind of action before something happens. In the grand scheme of business management, proactively taking action – whether it is about a suspicious employee or an unsound process – can save you a great deal of time and money.
Mastering how to better monitor your own time, along with the time that you already pay for, can have an incredible effect on your company’s productivity – and your sanity.
Up-to-date video systems enable you to capture, save and export video segments that are worth a thousand words.
4. Customer Service
Video stories have an incredible impact when it comes to periodically auditing your customer service. Up-to-date video systems enable you to capture, save and export video segments that are worth a thousand words. Consider these ideas:
• Observe someone doing something right. This type of recognition can go a long way with employee morale.
• Note whether your processes are even working and/or resonating with your customers. By using video examples, you can access how you can better service processes.
• When employees see themselves in action, they are more receptive to feedback – whether it’s criticism or praise. Use video as a constructive way to teach employees how to improve.
• When processes are functioning properly, employee morale is higher. This can help decrease turnover, which is one of the more time-consuming business activities a business manager has to deal with.
5.Sales Support
Transparency is more than a trend. It’s a valuable asset. Depending on your type of business, the kind of information your security device generates and records might help entice potential customers. Having the capabilities to capture your business processes, quality-control checkpoints or your customer service at work can be telling validation that can help you build your book of business. For example, live video streaming your front desk can be a great way for customers to feel a connection with your company when they’re visiting your website. Real video footage – or just pictures from your video footage – can give companies the “edge” that’s needed to attract customers.
Running a successful business takes time. While one of your many jobs is to protect your customers, employees, property and inventory, you still need to make sure you’re meeting your bottom line. Therefore, maximizing your security resources can be one rewarding way to extend your resources and visibility into your business. Plus, it’s comforting to know that you’re not the only entity wearing a lot of hats. Your security system does too. It’s time you let your security devices be a part of your company’s overall business strategy – and not just another machine that you routinely update when its battery runs low.
//
Tyco Integrated Security is North America’s leading
commercial security integrator, providing security and
business optimization services to more than 500,000
customers. With over 140 years of experience and more
than 10,000 employees – including a Worldwide Security
Monitoring Network that helps ensure fast, local 24/7
responsiveness to your security infrastructure – you can
rest assured that Tyco Integrated Security will be there
when you need it.
Safer. Smarter. Tyco.
™For more information, call 1.800.2.Tyco.IS (1.800.289.2647) or visit www.TycoIS.com.