Using data to manage change in
the physical security Industry
We are living in uncertain times. With rising prices, global responses to the challenges of globalisation, and the increasing costs associated with employing a workforce, our industry faces significant hurdles in delivering services. It can be tempting to adopt a pessimistic outlook, but it is crucial to embrace change and demonstrate resilience.
Security businesses can improve their service delivery by adopting a data-driven approach. This entails leveraging analytics, large data sets and workforce optimisation to transform our businesses and the industry through actionable insights, thereby supporting proactive, efficient, and tailored security operations. The main areas that will affect us are:
– Regulation, the cost to comply
– Economic, reduced spend and squeezed margins
– Technological Disruption, the automation risk
– Market overcapacity, too many and not enough variation
– Labour Shortages, high turnover, industry entrants and recruitment
In my opinion there are two main areas, recruitment and regulation, that are going to impact your profitability, growth and stability that are worthy of further discussion.
The rising cost of employment
We all know and have felt the impact on our businesses of the economic, regulatory and market driven factors that are influencing our industry. These factors include:
National Insurance Contributions
National Living Wage and Real Living Wage Increase
Pension Contributions
Recruitment Costs
Employee Expectations and Self Value
Cost of Living rises
These six areas will continue to have an impact on profit and the rates we can charge our customers. Whilst we cannot directly reduce the costs imposed on us through NLW, NIC and other regulated changes we
must look to other mechanisms to ensure we can retain margin, minimise costs and deliver long term cost sustainable solutions to our customers
The resurgence of the industry regulator
The SIA’s regulatory scope, priorities, and enforcement powers are evolving in response to new legislation, public safety concerns, and recommendations from high-profile inquiries. We have already discussed the potential for an increase in licencing (the move to cover in-house security delivery) needs and the raising of the standards of who is eligible to obtain and retain a licence but there are other areas that will impact us, our teams and businesses:
Counter-Terrorism and Martyn’s Law
Combating Illegal Operatives
Raising Training and Behavioural Standards
An anticipated raise in Inspections and Enforcement
The regulatory environment is changing to address new threats, public expectations, and recommendations from recent inquiries, focusing on public protection and industry professionalism. We must accept that an
increase in regulation will have a cost impact, not just through direct costs to comply but also through more indirect costs due to re-work, training and earning expectations.
Why are data driven outcomes important?
Data should be considered a “foundational asset” of your business, playing a critical role in your decision making and direction. Its importance can be summarised in the following areas:
• Informed and evidence-based outcomes
• Workforce optimisation through reduction in inefficiencies and waste, specifically the ability to work our teams in an optimal manner
• Customer insight and tailoring of service solutions
• Profitability and Revenue retention through identifying loss and bottlenecks
• Continuous Improvement driven by data that empirically proves the outcome
• A competitive advantage. Early adoption of data driven systems is proven to give businesses a competitive edge
The regulatory environment is changing to address new threats, public expectations, and recommendations from recent inquiries, focusing on public protection and industry professionalism. We must accept that an increase in regulation will have a cost impact, not just through direct costs to comply but also through more indirect costs due to re-work, training and earning expectations.
Conclusion
Data is essential for security businesses as it enables us to make informed decisions, enhance performance, better understand and serve customers, address issues effectively, foster innovation and sustain a competitive advantage in today’s data-driven economy.
Recommendations
This can appear to be a daunting task but taking the first steps towards becoming a data driven business are simple:
• Collect data from diverse sources such as scheduling, recruitment and incident logs.
• Collate data that enable you to review operational efficiencies such as patrol reports, supervisor visits and carbon footprint.
• Streamline shift planning and adjust deployment strategies to ensure critical areas receive appropriate attention without overextending resources.
• Optimize Resource Allocation and Analyse historical data to identify high-risk times and locations, enabling smarter guard deployment and patrol scheduling.
• Use a single platform capable of aggregating and normalising this data, creating a unified view of security operations.
