Part 2: How alarm & security companies can benefit from automations to solve their operational challenges and automate manual tasks.

Hello heroes of traditional economy industries! 😎

Today we’re continuing our break down of how security & alarm companies can automate manual tasks, streamline processes, improve efficiency and drive operational efficiency in different areas of their business with the help of technology and digital tools.

Companies in this industry have a lot of potential for growth if they will leverage various automations and digital tools to solve the operational challenges they have and set the stage for continuous growth. In order to do this companies first need to understand their current state in all divisions of their business.

Here are some examples of automations and various digital tools can increase efficiency in the operations of the following areas in their business:

Inventory Management 📦

Setting up automated notifications when inventory is falling bellow predefined thresholds to avoid delays in installations and maintenance works due to lack of necessary equipment and components.

Create a segmentation of equipment in the inventory management system for more efficient supply management, this also allows your team to quickly see what equipment is needed for specific installation or maintenance jobs which will save them a lot of time when preparing for a job at a client site. Also make sure to offer real time access to your field technicians through web & mobile interfaces of all inventory and stocks levels in real-time.

Having real-time overview on your inventory and history of it you can generate very accurate reports, make more informed decisions and can implement AI for predictive analytics to underline historical usage patterns, seasonal trends on demand, also trends on reliability of equipment.

Document management 📋

By implement automations for contract generation and data entry your company will reduce administrative overhead, spend less hours on repetitive data entry simplify the whole process and offering better service to customers.

It gets even better if then based on the info from the contract automated notifications are set up for for billing, contract renewals, invoicing and payment processing, all notifications being sent to the right people in you team to remind them about this.

You can do the same with your suppliers, set up automations based on the information from the contract and receive notifications and reminders with specific tasks that need to be done. Having all the information quickly available your team can easily access any information about the supplier that your company has like contracts, working terms, payment terms, deadlines, type of equipment, quantities, costs, etc.

From here you can automate the whole purchasing process by connecting your document management system to the inventory management system and once the stock level hits a certain threshold then an automated purchase order placement is being started with automatically generated requirements for that specific supplier and the required quantities and type of equipment needed, you’re basically streamlining the whole purchasing process and your team will just need to approve and confirm at each step if everything is correct or if changes in the order need to be done.

Also using the information from the contracts available in the document management system you can set up automated notifications for new jobs and maintenance works for your field technicians with all the requirements and tasks that need to be done at the client’s site.

Interoperability between systems 💻

In many cases companies use different systems internally for different purposes because not always there is one tool that covers all of the areas but this also leads to people spending a lot of time working with different apps and systems. Sometimes certain type of information needs to be introduced from one system to another which usually is not automated and it’s done manually which takes a lot of time.

Also most of the times when certain type of information or data is needed people usually have to access and go through all the different apps and systems to find what they are looking for and then spend even more time putting all that information together in the desired format. Connecting all the systems and apps will automate the process of gathering data, generating reports and having a unified ecosystem where you can easily find and export the information you need to assist you in your decision making process, compile information for various compliance reports or audits, RFP’s and generate extensive reports in the desired format.

Alarm & security companies can significantly increase their efficiency, cut costs and win back hours of work that can be spent on more important things like improving customer service & support, expand and grow the business.

Bellow is the link to the first part of this article in case you missed it.