Strategic Road Map Leads the Way to Good Security
November 1, 2011
This is Casey Laughman, managing editor of Building Operating Management. Today's tip is be prepared when it comes to security planning.
For facility managers and security directors, being prepared means more than having security measures in place to address the biggest risks to life and property. It means having a strategic road map that will guide security decisions and enable a facility manager or security director to make the right choices if a headline-making emergency leads to the question, "What are we doing to make sure this doesn't happen to us?"
All too often, funding for security measures is very difficult to come by — until something goes wrong. That's especially true given the state of the economy.
Concern for security rises when senior executives read about an incident at another facility. And it's up to the facility manager or security director to be prepared with the right answers if questions come from higher up in the organization.
A strategic security road map can help provide those answers, says Robert Lang, assistant vice president, strategic security and safety, and chief security officer, Kennesaw State University. That road map is based on a careful, ongoing analysis of facility needs as well as technologies, policies and procedures that can address those needs. Lang's road map extends five years into the future. He knows he won't get funding for everything he'd like to enhance the security program, at least not right away. But the road map shows what he'd like to do and when.
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