The competitive advantage of standardizing service processes.
by Luis González Nogales*
A few years ago we wrote about the added values that companies providing security services should give to their customers and that we focused on what we once called 5 P.
1. Processing.
2. Prediction.
3. Pro Activity
4. Budget
5. Productivity.
1. Processing
At the time we pointed out the need to move from the stage of recording data in books, forms, etc., to the management of automatic data collection and its corresponding processing into useful information. Today most large companies have hardware and software that allow them to have online the data of some of the most common functions of security such as the control of people, entrances, stay and exits, as well as the management of occupation and movements in parking lots.
Unfortunately, medium and small companies are still more attached to the management of manual registration of these activities and their subsequent storage of huge amounts of papers that are not processed and much less analyzed.
2. Prediction
The prediction of events is only possible if we have a good number of data on any type of activity that we mentioned in the previous point and which can indicate hours of greater occupation, days of greater incidents, etc. Being this field where greater advances and studies are being carried out through the so-called artificial intelligence, where the higher the numbers of data collected, the greater the possible alternatives that we will have to make the following point that is:
3. Proactivity
The proactivity of offering the client new services, products, processes and security procedures that help them improve their business, is the moment where the client does begin to perceive a true differentiation between our service and that of other suppliers.
4. Budgets
Undoubtedly, the offers and proposals to be made to the client must go in the order of improving their business, how to improve their sales, their costs, their cash flow, or whatever where the client best appreciates their profitability, so the budgets of investment, acquisition or rental of equipment must be fully aligned with these expectations, otherwise we would be working against the tide.
5. Productivity
Finally, and as we outlined in the previous point, the tangibilization of true added value is when the proposal helps to improve the profitability of the client's business, since in addition to the aspects of improving security, the processing we carry out of the information can help you make decisions, such as expanding or reducing parking spaces, the installation of advertising in places of greater volume or offer additional services to visitors in the highest hours of occupation, etc.
Value-added to service standard
When we implement this value-added philosophy as a standard of our service and make it standard to the customer, and the more customers we have, the more it will influence the short or medium term in the industry, we obtain an important competitive advantage.
While the most important thing about security is that it must be fully incorporated into the structure of the business as an integral part of it.
This does not exclude that the companies providing security services, by their very origin, must also obtain their margins and benefits, so the client must be aware that this value received as support and improvement of their business has a cost which must be honored in a timely manner; since otherwise we would have an unbalanced relationship that in the end will end up harming both parties, one by not being able to maintain or not be profitable in its level of service, due to the high financial costs involved in sustaining a service that is not being remunerated correctly and the company will be harmed, because accustomed to a high standard of service and values, it will be difficult for you to make an orderly change without compromising your safety.
Greetings to all our colleagues and friends.
* Luis González Nogales is the Executive President of INCASPRI. If you want to contact him write to the email: [email protected]
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