A recent practitioner poll by the Security Executive Council found that while a majority of uniformed security officer programs face budgetary pressure from executive management, many security leaders still do not use metrics to show the value of these programs.
Ninety-four percent (94%) of respondents have experienced requests to reduce uniformed security officer budgets, the poll shows. This is not surprising, says Heather O’Brien, SEC content expert faculty and former Southeastern Regional President for Universal Protection Service, LLC. “Contract security is often a very large ticket item on any company’s P&L, unavoidably drawing the attention and sometimes scrutiny to a company’s annual spend.”
However, results also show that many security leaders aren’t doing all they can to protect or optimize those threatened budgets; nearly 30 percent of respondents provide no reports on officer activity, improvement, or performance quality. There is much room for improvement here.
According to O’Brien, “Utilizing the right quantifiable key performance indicator (KPI) metrics can illustrate the effectiveness of your security program and demonstrate your return on investment on every security dollar spent. The results can be powerful in the C-suite when defending your security budget. Meaningful KPIs are also an excellent tool for managing your contract security provider and driving guard force optimization.”
Full results of the poll are posted at https://www.securityexecutivecouncil.com/spotlight/?sid=31453.
The SEC’s next Security Barometer quick poll will focus on top security concerns regarding bring-your-own-device trends in the workplace.