Scott

Securing a commercial premises against burglary is a lot more complex than for a home. There are many more factors to take into account when determining what’s appropriate.

Hopefully it goes without saying that identifying weak points in the existing security measures is the first task. Do you have low quality locks? Are there blind spots in the CCTV coverage? Are all potential entry points covered by the alarm system? Are the doors and windows in good repair? This should be common sense, and apply equally to domestic.

Another major factor for businesses, though, is the locality and environment where the business is located. It could be argued that this also applies domestically, and that’s correct up to a point. But it’s also true to say that the majority of homes are in areas where there a lots of other properties which overlook yours, and there is a lot of potential for passers-by to see any would-be burglars.

This is less true for commercial premises. Many are on the outskirts of town, on industrial estates which are cul-de-sacs, their own little bubble of activity during the day, but with nothing and no-one around at night. That makes it less likely a burglary will be detected and therefore increases the risk to the company.

Things get a little more subjective with a business property, though, when it comes to setting a budget for security expenditure.

The major factor here is to consider the consequences to the company if everything within their building is stolen – and I mean everything, stock, raw materials, machinery, computer systems, the lot – its value and the ease with which such goods can be disposed of.

Here’s an example. A big nationwide grocery wholesaler. Large premises with many thousands of pounds of stock inside, in a quiet industrial estate on the edge of town, backing onto a railway line. Easy to dispose of the stock, not a massive chance of being detected. A complete loss from this premises would obvoiusly be significant, but the company has numerous other warehouses around the country, so they can restock reasonably quickly. There is no danger, though, that the company would have to cease trading, it’s big enough to withstand the loss.

Contrast this with the small engineering works in the unit next door. The specialist machinery would be difficult to sell on, there’s only a limited market for such equipment. They hold minimal raw materials, buying what they need, when they need it, and once orders are complete, they’re shipped straight away. And yet, if they were to suffer a total loss, the consequences would almost certainly be catastrophic.

So who needs to spend more on security? There’s no straightforward answer.

If it’s your responsibility to ensure that your premises are secure, here’s our checklist of considerations:-

1) How strong are the existing security measures? How easy would it be for someone to break in tonight?
2) How likely is a burglary to be seen by a passer-by?
3) How likely are we to be a target? How easy it would it be for a burglar to sell anything that they take?
4) How serious are the consequences if we lost everything in a burglary tonight?

Evaluate this objectively, and you can then decide your budget priorities for your security.

There’s an old adage that says that you get what you pay for. Or the slightly more abrasive one that says that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

And I don’t know of anyone who disagrees with it. After all, a brand new BMW costs more than a 10 year old Vauxhall, but given a free choice, who would plump for the Vauxhall? Who would choose a B&B in Skegness over a Caribbean cruise? (No offence meant, Skegness).

It comes down to how people view affordability and value for money.

So, here’s the thing.

What’s the value for money of good security measures, whether it’s at home or at work? Let me frame that question slightly differently. What would be the impact to you at home, or to your company at work, if the security measures put in place fail to keep out a burglar? If everything is stolen?

If your place of work was broken into, and all the stock, all the IT infrastructure, all the cash in the safe were stolen, could your company survive that? And if they couldn’t survive, wouldn’t that mean you’d be out of a job?

You occasionally see stories in the local paper where people are appealing for the return of a family heirloom – they don’t care about the DVDs and computer games, but please let them have their grandmother’s wedding ring back, because of its sentimental value.

Let me tell you now, those appeals very very rarely work. Two reasons:- (A) Burglars aren’t sentimental people, they just don’t care and (B) they’ve already sold it on.

And the situation could have been avoided by spending some money on home security. Burglars like the easy target. They’ll pick the house without an alarm over the house with an alarm (81% of burglars surveyed have explicitly said that).

But, you get what you pay for.

If a burglar has a choice between a home with a professionally installed alarm, and a DIY one, which will they choose?

A shop-bought system is unlikely to be monitored – in other words, it won’t communicate with a monitoring station or direct to the owner of the property, that the alarm system has been triggered. And who, these days, listens to a neighbour’s alarm going off and thinks “I must phone the police”? More likely, they think “What a nuisance, I hope that noise doesn’t go on for hours.” So, whilst DIY alarms are better than no alarm at all, they are less of a deterrent than a pro alarm.

Then what happens when the system goes wrong? No problem, really, you just go back to the shop where you bought it, and buy a replacement component. Apart from people who bought their system from Maplins, of course.

Ah, but Amazon are a huge company, they’re going nowhere. For sure that’s true, but Amazon don’t sell the vast majority of the goods that are bought on their website, most of it comes from far smaller companies, leveraging the power of Amazon’s marketplace platform.

Going off slightly at a tangent here, have you seen various news stories about farmers complaining that they can’t make a living selling milk? The supermarkets, being such large companies, are dictating the price they will pay, and it’s just not enough to be profitable. Some try to find other selling channels, whilst the unlucky ones carry on until their business fails. And then the supermarkets go and find someone else to buy from.

Hey, big news, the DIY superstore chains do exactly the same thing. The effect is that you can’t rely on them to stock spares for the system you bought there 4 or 5 years ago, either.

Now, I’m not saying that professional alarm installers don’t switch suppliers, and manufacturers don’t make products obsolete. Of course they do. But it’s in their interest to keep their customers happy, it’s in their interests to keep the same supplies available as much as possible, because it keeps life simpler for them.

And yes, this generally costs you more. But what’s the point of saving a few hundred pounds buying a system that in 4 or 5 years time isn’t as effective, or just plain doesn’t work at all and can’t be fixed? Whereas a professionally installed and maintained system is normally effective for 10, 15 years and longer, and it can be upgraded without having to replace every single component.

You get what you pay for.