Why Security Professionals Rely on Incident Management Software

Incident management software helps security professionals.

How?

By driving efficiency throughout their operation.

Amid the chaos, these professionals depend on well-trained security guards and innovative solutions.

Heavily.

Managing incident details is a necessity whether an organization oversees one property or many.

To be proactive, make quick-thinking operational decisions, and respond to incidents in the least amount of time possible – security operations depend on robust incident management software.

Through this, they can overcome and enhance their approach to daily challenges faced by most security operations.

Incident Management Software Epitomizes Value

Security professionals put a system in place to handle incidents throughout their properties for reasons that extend beyond efficiency and documentation: The ability to analyze data and change operational behaviors for augmented security operations.

Analyzing operational effectiveness is imperative. It starts with laying the foundation.

Putting infrastructure in place provides security operations with the ability to capture critical data they need – but more importantly – data they can use.

All data can then be used to understand how the operation’s alignment with the company's goals and its customers' goals can be achieved.

Security professionals know that documenting incidents and reporting them into their incident management software is the start, but it’s only a small piece of the big picture.

Reaping the benefits associated with being a professional requires a little more than click, click, done.

Security operations need to take a fine-toothed comb to their data if they want to stand out.

The value security professionals realize that their incident management software is in documenting incident details and gathering data they can use.

Obtaining measurable, supportive, and actionable data from these systems is when the actual value surfaces.

Security Professionals Are Relentless About Improving Response Times

Operations that strive to perform above the curve and want to continue generating revenue waste no time getting into action.

Security professionals can measure and improve response times with infrastructure and incident management solutions in position.

These integrated initiatives help them stay focused, leading to operational efficiency and Proactive Operations.

But why do response times matter? Why do security professionals need to put so much effort into understanding and applying methods for a quick response?

Here are four reasons why.

1. Quickly handling customer issues a few minutes sooner has a lasting impact on credibility. Your customers will soon notice the efforts and training of security guards and never forgotten.
2. Faster response minimizes the impact of all types of incidents occurring throughout a property. A minor construction site water main leak could potentially turn into a severe flood due to delayed response and improper handling.
3. Slow response times influence other areas of a security operation. Longer response times lead to operational bottlenecks, preventing security guards from delivering professional service and limiting everyone’s liability.
4. Understanding operational limitations is a crucial factor in achieving efficiency and effectiveness. Security professionals improve processes using data in their planning and preparation. Faster response times only lead to positive results. Once any weaknesses have been identified, supervisors can role-play with staff to reduce the limitations for even quicker response times.

Professionals Ask the Right Questions

Operations that use their incident management software solutions with purpose answer the following questions.

With sure-fire confidence, they can define a benchmark for their operation regarding what significant response times should be.

• What’s the current timeframe for receiving a call from a customer or security guards on the job?
• When a call is received, how long does it take for the dispatcher to obtain vital information, document the details, and then dispatch the incident to personnel?
• What is the average time it takes for security staff to arrive on the scene and correctly handle the incident?

These three questions assist security organizations in understanding and identifying appropriate response times for their team.

Using this data, coupled with their incident reporting software, helps to optimize incident management protocols.

Over to You

Response times are an essential part of improving operational behaviors. Response times matter to the security professionals’ ability to exceed customers’ expectations.

Responding to one more incident a little quicker start with laying the correct foundation, properly training security guards, using an incident management system to document information, and then scrutinizing the data to reduce response times to incidents.

If you’re not doing this now, when will you begin taking advantage of incident management solutions' operational benefits to provide for security operations like yours?

Editor's note: This post was originally published in February 2015 and has been updated for comprehensiveness and freshness.