Convergence Channel: You Can Offer Clients So Much More Than Security
Security solutions have evolved to help organizations make more intelligent decisions. Capabilities that save or earn businesses money are a top priority. Many enlightened security managers recognize this and so should you.
Value-added security solutions can deliver business value through operational efficiency in the same solution. A project at LAX Airport provided an airline with enhanced security and helped it save $40,000 it had been losing each month busing passengers between terminals. ©iStockphoto.com/Lee Pettet
Solution Improves Airline Efficiency
The year was 2005 and the place was Los Angeles Int’l Airport. The customer was a nationally known airline based in Atlanta whose operational inefficiency was busing passengers between terminals. Due to TSA security concerns after 9/11, the underground tunnels could no longer be used. The operational impact was $40,000 per month to the bottom line.
The solution path required an in-depth understanding of the security concerns, security processes, all the different organizations that would require a voice in the solution, the political waters to navigate between public and private entities, and how opening the tunnels would deliver operational efficiency to as many “partners” as possible.
Using a network-centric solution of video, intercom, dynamic compartmentalization (lockdown), multiple monitoring stations and customized TSA training, it resulted in a project that cost a little more than $400,000 and delivered a breakeven investment for the client in 10 months. The tunnels have been open since 2008. The operational efficiency delivered to the airport authority, first responders, maintenance and service personnel, travelers as well as other carriers is substantial. (For more on this application, click here.)
4 Key ‘P’ Questions to Resolve
So what defines “operational efficiency” in a business? The answer can and is as varied as the types of businesses that security solutions serve. You can boil it down to four ‘P’ questions. People: Who will be involved and who wil
l benefit? Process: How will your solution change, improve or stream line our processes? Policy: How will you support, improve or streamline our policies and who will be impacted? Profit: We want to make more of it, so how will investing in your solution do that?
Paul Boucherle, Certified Protection Professional (CPP) and Certified Sherpa Coach (CSC), is principal of Canfield, Ohio-based Matterhorn Consulting (www.matterhornconsulting.com). He has more than 30 years of diverse security and safety industry experience.
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About the Author
Paul Boucherle, SSI Contributor
Paul C. Boucherle, Certified Protection Professional (CPP) and Certified Sherpa Coach (CSC), is Security Sales & Integration’s “Business Fitness” columnist. A principal of Matterhorn Consulting, he has more than 30 years of diverse security and safety industry experience including UL central station operations, risk-vulnerability assessments, strategic security program design and management of industry convergence challenges. Boucherle has successfully guided top-tier companies in achieving enhanced ROI resulting from improved sales and operational management techniques. He is a charismatic speaker and educator on a wide range of critical topics relating to the security industry of today and an accomplished corporate strategist and marketer whose vision and expertise in business performance have driven notable enterprise growth in the security industry sector.
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