Southend Sole Trader or International Firm – Protect Your Profit!

Profit. The margin between what you earn and what you must pay out.

It’s the life blood of any business, from international professional firm to sole trader.

No profit margin, no business.

Sadly, there is more than one bad guy that can steal your profit margin if you make the wrong choice about your security.

It’s not just burglars who break into your premises and vandalise or nick your stuff. Or cyber thieves who hack into your systems and steal your data.

It’s legislation that forces you to invest in compliance measures. GDPR, for example.

And it’s also members of staff who take short cuts in an attempt to cut costs.

How do you protect your profit?

At one end of the spectrum, you have professional firms who don’t prioritise their security. It’s a tick box exercise for the Responsible Person (RP). Or it’s given such a low portion of the budget that the poor RP has to try and make a silk purse from a sow’s ear!

Yes, they have CCTV cameras. But the footage is of such poor quality that if anyone did break in, it would be impossible to identify the thief.

And their broadband is so up and down that there is only a slim chance of a signal going from their alarm system to the receiving centre. That’s if they bother to have a monitoring service at all…

Risk management

And at the other end, you have firms where the HD CCTV system is managed by an SSAIB installation firm. Your quality grade 2 or 3 intruder alarm is installed and maintained by an accredited company and monitored by an Alarm Receiving Centre, so it qualifies for Police response to activation.

They also have lone worker monitoring for staff who stay late to finish an important job and find themselves on their own in the building.

They have keyfobs to ensure that only authorised staff can come in and out of the building’s doors.

The car park is secured by fencing, has effective external lighting and automatic gates. Again, entry and exit is controlled by keyfobs. Any staff coming out in the dark can be sure they are safe on the journey from the back door to their vehicle. As is anything they may be carrying for the business.

Simple security measures like this don’t only protect your profit and data. They contribute to staff retention. Employees with any potential tend to leave organisations where money is not invested in making the office a great environment. And a safe place to work. Especially out of regular hours.

Unhappy staff will move on, incurring recruitment costs and potential downtime if you cannot replace them quickly.

Happy, loyal staff are also much more productive with a better work ethic.

So you might save money by installing cheap ineffective security equipment. But you lose a lot more in costs relating to staff recruitment and retention. Not to mention fines if anything goes horribly wrong and you can’t prove due diligence. So, not a great way to protect your profit after all…

GDPR and the impact of shredding on your margin

Most professional firms don’t tend to have a lot of paper files now. Everything is scanned and uploaded to their practice management software. And then shredded.

Take the simple process of shredding important documents that include personal data.

Accountants and solicitors who are on the ball will have a shredding bin. It’s a locked box with a one way slot like a letter box. And it’s stored securely in the corner of a locked office that has the appropriate grade of alarm and CCTV system. Both of which are monitored 24/7.

Staff post documents for shredding in real time. They don’t have to try to find somewhere secure to store them until the next time someone is tasked with doing some shredding.

There is a regular collection service and the bins are signed for and taken away for their contents to be shredded and disposed of securely.

Some firms, on the other hand, will have a shredder. Usually they will get through 2 or 3 shredders in a year. And, from time to time, it will be someone’s task to shred a load of paper.

But where have those sensitive documents been stored in the meantime? In someone’s desk or a filing cabinet that has a lock which is easy to drill? Or an office with a CCTV that was put in by a mate of one of the Partners?

In terms of a fine for stolen data of this nature, the ICO would throw the book at you if you have data stolen through inadequate security systems!

Protect your profits in Essex and London

Eastern are SSAIB accredited and have years of experience working with firms of all sizes. Our business is protecting your business. From Access Control to Zoned Intruder Alarms, we can design and install the perfect security solution for you!

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