The UK security sector is integral to supporting our national security and is making a great contribution to the UK’s economy. The sector is experiencing continual growth and is outpacing the UK economy by several factors. The sector grew to £12.2bn in 2016 (17% increase) and most UK security companies expect this growth to continue over the coming years, £4.3bn of that annual turnover in 2017 came from exports.

The sector provides a variety of services that include security patrols, security guarding, key holding, concierge services, event management, CCTV installation and maintenance, and cybersecurity. Also, there are several products sold in the UK and abroad from alarm systems to CCTV systems that help the UK to have a 19% market share of the global security export market.

With all of these products and services being sold locally and internationally, there are a lot of components to the UK security sector. Like every other sector of society digital technologies can help security companies to be more efficient and to save time and money in delivering their offerings. Several security companies use Service Management Software to improve their service delivery, why not save time and improve efficiencies by using service management software?

Service Asset Manager (SAM) offers a wide range of features that can help security companies to manage their security personnel remotely, here are some of those features:

Job Management

UK Security companies provide many services that involve security personnel operating in various locations, it is crucial for management and administration staff to know the details of each of the locations the security personnel is covering. SAM has a job management module that allows you to see the details for all of the current jobs and to prioritize them according to their urgency, the module includes a unified job diary that allows you to see the current jobs as well as reserve new jobs directly to the diary with a few clicks. To make it, even more, user-friendly, this feature has a drag-and-drop functionality so you won’t have to re-enter booking details in case of adjustments.

Asset Management

For security companies that provide maintenance for CCTV systems, intruder alarms, fire alarms, access control systems, and other assets SAM has the asset management module. This module provides knowledge of the status of your assets and allows you to access real-time customisable information about them, you can also view the entire history of each asset and it records any changes to the asset’s properties. If you need to provide Planned Preventative Maintenance (or recurring jobs) you can program SAM to assign the jobs at the desired dates over the agreed period.

Stock control

Many security companies sell a variety of products both at home and abroad, therefore, the SAM stock control module is built-in so you can monitor everything from one place. This easy-to-use and scalable stock control system has several features that make it an essential addition for security providers with products for sale, these include:

· Multiple site management

· Synchronises with e-commerce website and accounts packages

· Serial/Batch number tracking

· Bar code (printing/scanning)

· Assign images to stock records

· Reserve stock (ring-fencing stock for high priority)

· Allocate stock (allocating stock for shipment)

· Reporting (number of templates)

· Stocktake

· Add user define fields/attributes

Customer Relationship Management

It is important for management to be able to manage all of their customer and supplier information, using the built-in CRM module will also help to market to existing and potential new clients. Effective usage of the CRM will enable you to ensure that your companies brand is in the mind of your potential customers leading to higher levels of new and repeat business.

Quotations and Invoices

Sales and marketing staff can use SAM to generate instant quotations on company headed paper from the financial module. It can be programmed with all of your products and/or services making this a simple and quick process. Once the quotation has been agreed with the customer, it can be changed to an invoice for delivery to your client.

Sage Integration

With financial documentation being created with SAM, accounts integration ensures that you do not have to update these transactions more than once. Users of Quickbooks and Zero can transfer their transactions with the click of a mouse, whereas, SAM is fully integrated with Sage Accounts and transactions are instantly transferred to the accounting package.

Service Level Agreements and Contracts

Security providers will have various service level agreements and contracts with their clients. These could be different for each client, so it is important for management and administration staff to be able to easily view these agreements. The Service Level Agreement module allows you to see each agreement for each client at the click of a mouse, this ensures that staff appreciates the job’s requirements and stops under and over delivery.

When the contract (28 days before) is up for renewal, SAM will send the user and the client (optional) an email informing that the contract is coming to an end, helping you to negotiate the upcoming period.

Mobile App

With your security personnel operating at multiple locations, it desirable for management and administration staff to be able to communicate with these mobile workers. The SAM mobile app (available on Android and iOS) allows you to keep a track of all of your mobile operations while your teams are operating at one location or another, also, mobile workers are able to access the system to receive required information while on the move.

Customer Portal

The best security companies are professional and efficient and a customer portal can help providers to display these attributes. It allows your clients 24/7 access to log their jobs, this eliminates the possibility of making double bookings. Also, it saves your administration staff time as they don’t need to talk to the customer to receive the booking.