6 Templates to Help you Get Budget for Security Technology Upgrades

You’ve made it through the pandemic and you’re ready to resume your work-life as it used to be…but better. 

The events of 2020 exposed organizational inefficiencies like:

1. The waste associated with mandated 5-day in-office work weeks
2. The gaps in security – both cyber and physical
3. The critical information that is lost when there is duplicate data in disparate systems

Security professionals felt the brunt of these inefficiencies and are now tasked with bridging the gaps that will create a more secure and flexible environment for new office realities. 

Bridge the Gaps

Let’s start with the first point: mandated 5-day in-office work weeks are at least no longer popular and at most a thing of the past. Many organizations are figuring out different ways to use their office space and are welcoming employees back on a hybrid basis. 

Security and facility professionals need the right technology to understand how the office space is used now. When you understand how many employees are back, how often, and in which areas of the office, you can make decisions on the retraction or expansion of office space. Perhaps some offices can become co-working spaces. There are so many options in our connected world, but if you don’t understand how your space is used, it’s impossible to make the best financial and functional decisions for your organization. 

Second, the rash of cyber attacks and the rise in crime during the pandemic brought the importance of organizational security to the forefront. At the same time, stay-at-home orders forced security and facility professionals to try to manage their facilities remotely, maybe for the first time. This has highlighted the need for cloud-based physical security, rather than on-premises security. Remote capabilities are now one of the most requested functions of access control solutions according to a recent Brivo and SDM survey. 

Third, companies felt frustration from disparate systems and incompatible data. An integrated organization is now a necessity rather than an ideal. Organizational security technology must integrate with other systems like identity management, visitor management, alarms, etc. to remove inefficiencies like duplicate data and to synchronize functions when employees leave or join the organization. Access data can be integrated with other data-rich systems for a full view of organizational health. 

Preaching to the Choir

You experienced the frustrations illuminated by the pandemic year and you are well aware of the hurdles to bringing back your employees. You know you need security technology built to give you the data to see how your space is being used and that works remotely and gives you control over your facilities and the data to make future smart business decisions.

Does your C-Suite know? Are they aware of the impact that the right security technology can have on the organization? 

Gaining Executive Buy-In

It’s not easy to ask for more budget but there are tools available to help. We’ve broken down the elements to bring the C-Suite on board and get an approved budget for the technology upgrades you need to elevate the security of your organization. These templates will help you prepare your business case and get the people you need on your side: 

1. Know your audience: Company owners are interested in the impact of new technology on the bottom line. This budget template helps you clearly describe benefits aligned with the total cost of ownership and ROI.
2. Anticipate key questions: Prepare answers to “who, what, where, why and how” questions, in order to establish more confidence in the plan and your ability to execute it.
3. Show the bottom-line impact: A budget template to help you find real-world scenarios that demonstrate the value a new access control system would bring to your organization.
4. Prove potential ROI: Use this template to calculate the bottom-line impact and the real dollars you can save. That dollarized outcome leads to your ROI.
5. Compare the top options: The template helps you organize vendor information and score your requirements.
6. Create the pitch: To build the pitch, you need to bring together both the bottom-line tangible business impacts as well as highlight the safety paradigm that you face.

You know you need the right technology to meet the new needs of the post-pandemic organization. Be proactive in your measures to increase organizational efficiency and security.