Imagine trying to drive your car without a speedometer, an odometer, or a gas gauge. How would you know how fast you’re driving, how much gas you have left in the tank, or when that next oil change is due?
Just as you depend on the gauges in your car to drive safely and to alert you when there’s a problem, the same principle applies to your guard program. What gets measured gets managed. For too long, the loss prevention industry has been using guard services without access to measurable performance data.
So when one of the world’s largest retailers started asking why it couldn’t expect the same sophistication, analytics, reporting, and transparency in its security operations that it demands in other parts of its business, it raised some eyebrows industry-wide by taking a dramatically different approach that ultimately improved its bottom line. It wanted a modern security program, and Securitime stepped up with the only right answer–a well-tested, third-party software system that improved transparency, reduced risk, streamlined workforce performance, and ultimately cut operating costs.
Founding Securitime
Securitime is a new Software as a Service (SaaS) provider in the LP industry, but is built on a proven and prestigious history. The solution was crafted over nearly ten years of high-performance, on-the-job testing as the internal proprietary software for a well-known market leader in the security industry. Securitime is now independently available for forward-thinking firms who want to raise their loss prevention standards.
Securitime SaaS excels in three unique areas:
- Actionable real-time communication between the security workforce and your corporate loss prevention and site management teams,
- Increased program-wide accountability with clear benchmarking, and
- Real-time analytics.
The lack of technology that promoted this accountability caused one of the largest retailers, who wanted a modern, third-party, time-and-attendance service, to seek out the creators of Securitime for its pilot program. Based on the overwhelming success of that implementation effort, this retailer has completed the Securitime rollout to sites across North America and is reaping the benefits and notes a significant ROI–much more than the cost of the overall program.
Time and Attendance: Saving Money While Reducing Costs
Many security guards still use paper timecards, which have finally started disappearing. This has helped to improve billing accuracy, but when vendors control the time-and-attendance software, verifying accuracy and authenticity is a difficult task.
An independent, third-party software solution prioritizes the client’s interest and holds all parties to the same standards of effective communication and workforce accountability. Overbilling issues can be quickly identified and addressed without burdensome audit systems. Securitime helps identify ongoing tardiness issues, coverage gaps, and other accountability and business vulnerabilities in order to remove systemic risk from client operations–and Securitime can easily handle these tasks at scale.
Incident Reporting: Reducing Liability with Actionable Data
Communication is a challenge for all large security programs. Securitime was built from the ground up to provide a centralized communication hub that seamlessly collects, disseminates, and archives data for actionable future application. Each officer represents a collectable data point for your company’s long-term profitability. Their observations provide valuable information for those in loss prevention and asset protection leadership roles, but only if you can collect their insights in a way that can be mined on-demand and in a meaningful way.
Implementation
While the benefits of Securitime are readily apparent, all large-scale system rollouts require proactive change management. Vendor partners and security guards often push back against change, especially when that change doesn’t appear to be in their favor. In the pilot program cited above, established security vendors were quick to point out that they had time-and-attendance software and didn’t understand the need for an independent or client-run system like Securitime. However, after deployment, Securitime revealed long-hidden timekeeping problems that made the debate futile for all parties.
Securitime’s location-based verification system uses caller ID validation, which quickly revealed notable “irregularities.” Officers who had previously clocked-in by cell phone were now unable to do so with Securitime. Site supervisors were alerted to the distressing truth–they had been paying guards who were not actually on site, and worse, their facilities had systemic coverage lapses that exposed both their inventory and staff to avoidable risk.
Securitime’s communication processes also force engagement between the client and the vendor both at the local and national levels. Guard performance and invoicing conversations could be addressed and resolved quickly with clear, well-documented, and easily accessible supporting data, which resulted in an instant increase in program performance. When both the client and the vendor have access to the same accurate time-and-attendance information, issues can be resolved quickly, and long-term trusted partnerships can flourish.
Unexpected Benefits
Apart from the anticipated value of Securitime, there were a number of unexpected benefits realized by the security management provider:
- Good performance was noticed. Security vendors could now be ranked on verifiable data, and great performance could be recognized and rewarded.
- Administrative costs went down. Securitime’s validations, alerts, and billing systems decreased administrative overhead, reduced vendor costs opening up greater margin, and increased negotiation capacity in competitive bids.
- Client communication improved. By allowing incidents to be addressed quickly, vendors could more accurately evaluate and improve their staff, increase client trust, and proactively plan for long-term growth.
In addition, there was a number of unexpected big wins for the client:
- Previously, schedule change policies had been ignored at the regional and store levels. These discrepancies created budget challenges at the end of year. Once the schedules fell into alignment, unauthorized attempts to make schedule changes could be quickly identified and dealt with appropriately.
- Securitime’s incident-reporting services proved to be valuable strategic data points. Security officers are great eyes and ears in the field, but if the information is not reaching key personnel in a timely manner, it loses its value, and officers begin to disengage. Securitime’s ability to disseminate incident information quickly through automated, severity-based channels gives clients quick, actionable information.
Real, Measurable ROI Delivered
After a full two-year deployment, the client recognized an average 2 percent reduction in non-billable time reported in the weekly punch reportsÑa direct savings. An additional, non-direct savings from 1 to 3 percent are also consistently reported from greater schedule alignment, a near elimination of unauthorized schedule changes, reduced liability exposure, onsite validations to improve billing to performance actuals, reduced administrative burden, and clear, consistent key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate security team performance at the enterprise level.
If you are interested in a conversation to determine if Securitime could work for your organization as well, contact us at 866-254-1237 or visit our site: securitimewfx.com. We’d be glad to provide a fully confidential consultation.