For Corporate IT and Real Estate Managers tasked with enhancing the workplace security infrastructure of multi-office enterprise companies, selecting the right security solution is pivotal. This checklist helps guide you through the critical considerations you need to make for ensuring that your office security strategy not only meets your security needs but also adds value to your business operations.
Operational Efficiency
Cloud-Based Operation: Cloud-based access control and video surveillance enable consistent technology implementation across disparate office locations. This provides centralized control for managing security parameters and consolidating data collection and reporting across multiple locations efficiently.
Centralized Identity Management: This is a critically important feature for enhancing efficiency. When your access control system has centralized identity management, all authorized workplace occupants for all locations of the business have their individual access profiles residing at the organization’s central employee active directory database, typically managed by HR or IT.
This integration unifies physical access privileges with the authoritative source for all company records, including pay, benefits, IT network access, and more. It greatly simplifies and automates the administration of access rights, streamlining new employee onboarding or deactivation with just one data entry in one database. This ensures consistent user access provisioning across all locations instantly.
In addition, it eliminates the hassle and time loss of physical credential management. All access privileges reside in the database, not on the physical credential, so if the badge or key fob is ever lost, stolen, or retained by a terminated employee, access will no longer be granted for that device. Obviously, this also significantly enhances security.
Maintenance and Monitoring: Advanced technology requires dedicated upkeep and repairs while security performance demands accountable oversight. While you can hire staff to do this or depend on an assortment of local vendors at each location, a more cost-effective and efficient approach is outsourcing to a nationally managed security provider. This service is like how some businesses outsource IT management if it is not a core value-driver for the firm. This reduces operational burdens and allows your workforce to focus on core business activities.
Comprehensive Offering: For optimal efficiency, consider a provider that consolidates your physical security operation by offering and servicing a full suite of security services. This includes access control, video surveillance, and visitor management, providing a holistic security approach. Working with one provider and platform is more efficient than managing several vendors and a piecemeal, a-la-carte mix of technology.
Consistency and Reliability
Integration Capability: Seek open, non-proprietary technology that easily integrates with existing, often diverse, legacy equipment at each location. This unifies operations into a central, consistent system without the need for costly hardware replacements.
Future-Friendly Technology: Does your solution provider have a track record of investing in technology innovation. Ensure they can grow and adapt with industry changes, your evolving security strategy, and your business growth. Avoid investing in a security system that may become outdated or obsolete in just a few years.
Dedicated Support: To avoid any downtime of your security system, look for service providers who are accountable and readily available when issues occur. Searching for local expertise in a pinch, especially across different local markets, can be time-consuming and expensive. Outsourcing to a national managed service provider is a cost-effective option that ensures consistency of service across all locations.
Uniform Security Protocols: In case of security incidents or emergencies, you want the response process and auditing procedures to be equitably uniform across locations to optimize response and mitigate risk. You should employ a resource, either within the technology platform you choose or through the specific personnel you have in place to monitor security, that can carry out standard security protocols and user experiences across all facilities. Again, an outsourced nationally managed security provider can ensure these are put in place and carried out uniformly across markets, saving you and you staff the effort and time.
Data Insights and Compliance
Advanced Reporting: With the dynamic nature of hybrid work attendance, gaining insights into occupant behavior by location and over time is crucial. This not only helps optimize space use but also ensures compliance with attendance policies. It’s essential to assess whether a provider offers a centralized database with a user-friendly interface, providing the data access and transparency necessary for actionable insights and reporting.
Identity-Based Access Control: Sensors can provide data on the number of occupants in a particular space. However, they cannot identify the specific individuals using the space, or their department, group, or role. Ensure the system allows for identity-based access control, providing detailed occupant data for improved space utilization and security management.
Compliance and Auditing Support: Choose a partner that simplifies compliance reporting with easy auditing features and customizable report templates. Also evaluate the scalability of the reporting across locations, and if the provider has consolidated benchmark attendance data for comparing your activity to the broader market or across the nation.
Partnership and Support
Customer-Centric Approach: Select a partner known for a strong customer service ethos, willing to understand and adapt to yourspecific needs.
Training and Resources: Verify that comprehensive training and support materials are available for your team to maximize the use of the security systems.
Proof of Concept: Consider partners open to conducting pilot tests or providing demos to showcase the effectiveness of their solutions in real-world scenarios.
Financial Considerations
Cost-Effectiveness: Evaluate the total cost of ownership, including initial setup, operational, and maintenance costs, to ensure it aligns with your budget.
ROI and Value Addition: Assess the potential return on investment and how the security solutions can contribute to operational savings and business growth.
Utilizing this checklist will help ensure that you select a security partner capable of providing a secure, efficient, and scalable solution that aligns with your company’s strategic objectives. Remember, the right partner not only secures your assets but also supports your business’s continuity and growth.
Learn more about Kastle’s Managed Security Service here.