5 Security Mistakes Your Business Might Be Guilty of Making

May 24, 2021

If you own or operate a business, you work hard to ensure productivity and profitability. What about physical security, though? You need a way to keep people safe from intruders, ensure product security and protect your business against monetary losses. Almost 9% of small businesses experience burglaries in a year, for instance, so preparing for and thwarting events like these is essential.

What are physical security risks, and what steps can your business take to mitigate them? The guide below will explore the benefits of physical security services, point out a few common business security mistakes and provide some tips for enhanced physical security for businesses.

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What Is Physical Security?

A few different types of security risks to organizations exist. Physical security involves protecting physical property, people and assets.

This type of security is distinct from other considerations like cybersecurity, which focuses on protecting your digital information and infrastructure. Physical security focuses on protecting things, people and places you can see and touch.

Physical security includes utilizing physical deterrents, detecting unauthorized personnel and responding effectively to their threats. It often involves keeping people, both malicious external actors and insiders, from accessing other people and assets they should not. It also entails keeping the public out of your sensitive areas and protecting employees from physical injury.

Below are a few examples of physical security measures:

• Installing locks, security cameras or alarm systems to thwart malicious individuals.
• Using bodyguards to protect high-level executives or other people experiencing a heightened threat of bodily harm.
• Hiring armed or unarmed security guards to patrol a bank or business operation.
• Stationing security guards at building entrances for access control to ensure only authorized personnel gain entry.
• Posting patrol personnel around a retail center or warehouse to minimize the threat of product loss.
• Dispatching security teams to protect a sporting contest, music festival or other public events.
• Deploying armed couriers to conduct monetary deposits safely to their destination.
• Hiring school resource officers to protect teachers and students from intruders.
• Contracting with a security company to protect a private gathering like a wedding or corporate event.

 

Why Is Physical Security Important?

Reliable physical security is essential for any business. Many companies today focus tremendous resources on cybersecurity, but physical security deserves equal attention. You may have the latest, most sophisticated firewalls and encryptions for your networks. But they won’t step in to help if a person gains access to your building and steals valuable merchandise, cash or the servers that contain your vital data.

Beefing up your company’s physical security offers the following advantages:

• Creates a culture of safety: You want your business to earn a reputation for being a safe, comfortable place to work. If employees fear for their physical safety, you’ll likely lose good people to high turnover, and the quality of your services will suffer.
• Ensures peace of mind for patrons: You also want your clients to feel safe when they visit your business. Providing sufficient physical security allows you to keep your customers safe so they can do business with confidence or enjoy themselves at your venue.
• Protects valuable information: Companies often keep detailed physical records as well as digital ones. Adequate physical security allows your business to deter intruders who could access sensitive files, financial documents or the physical servers containing your digital data.
• Minimizes profit loss: Your business needs ways to keep products and cash secure. Robust physical security enables you to reduce losses so you keep your business strong and profitable.

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5 Ways to Improve Physical Security

Physical security risks for businesses are more common than you might think. Below are a few tips for how to boost your physical security for a safer working environment.

 

1. Focus on More Than the Front Door

What are the threats to security at your business? To answer this question, you might imagine an intruder bursting through the doors in search of cash or valuable items. Too often, companies focus all their security resources and attention on the front door, leaving other entrances exposed and vulnerable. Malicious individuals can easily sneak around to an unlocked back door or window or unsecured loading dock and gain access.

Be sure to lock all windows and doors when your facility is not actively using them. Installing alarms or stationing physical guards to secure the rest of your building also helps deter threats at each entry point. Those steps provide comprehensive security to keep people and property safe.

2. Address the Potential for Internal Threats

In considering security risks to an organization, business leaders focus on external threats — intruders who could sneak through a window or shoplifters who could take products. These are important threats to mitigate, of course. Still, it’s essential to consider the potential for internal threats, as well.

Be sure to vet new employees as thoroughly as you can, and try to use two-person systems for handling products and cash. You might also consider limiting the number of keys you hand out to employees and using video monitoring systems in high-value product areas to prevent loss.

3. Diversify Your Security Measures

One of the best ways to increase security at your business is to diversify the systems you use to protect it. Maybe your company has a security camera system but some areas of your facility get little to no coverage. Or maybe you have an alarm system but no way to monitor your property directly.

Using overlapping systems helps you provide more comprehensive security coverage to deter intruders. For instance, consider supplementing your alarm system or security cameras with armed or unarmed personnel who can provide on-the-ground surveillance and react quickly if needed.

4. Invest in Building Security Features

Guards and monitoring systems are effective defenses against intruders. Still, it’s often more advantageous to keep external threats from breaching your business in the first place.

Investing in security features for your building is often an ideal solution in high-threat areas. Bulletproof glass, steel doors and heavy-duty safes are all useful, for instance, in areas that store currency and other valuables.

5. Protect Valuables in Transit

Sometimes, businesses take care to secure their buildings but provide little protection for valuables that leave the premises. This gap in protection creates an opening for thieves to access your valuable products or monetary deposits as you transport them.

If you’re investing in security personnel for your physical location, consider hiring armed couriers, as well. These security details can escort your valuables off-site and secure them from external threats during transit.

 

Contact Vigilant Tiger for Physical Security Services Today

When you need to increase physical security risk management at your business, get in touch with Vigilant Tiger. We offer professional services, event services and personal and private security, so you’ll have access to highly trained professionals no matter what level of protection you need. Our reliable, professional teams in Colorado Springs are happy to work with you to secure your premises and make clients, executives and employees feel safe.

Contact us today to schedule security services or learn more about how we can provide local, effective protection for all your security needs.