2020 is finally over and the New Year has gotten underway. This has a lot of business leaders thinking about how they can ensure success for their organizations in 2021. Many security dealers have been operating the same way for years or even decades. Following a year that has been nothing short of turbulent, it is perhaps the ideal time to examine your processes, tools, and overall approach.
If you want to start 2021 on the strongest footing possible, a few changes may be helpful. Here are six ways you can reexamine your business, update your strategy, and set yourself up for success this year.
1. Examine Your Business Goals
No change process can be effective without first examining your goals. Chances are that COVID-19 and the hectic past year caused you to rethink some of your services and products. Perhaps you needed to operate remotely or with new practices to ensure the safety of your team and customers. While life will hopefully get back to a much more normal flow over the course of this year, these changes may require you to rethink your goals.
Did the alterations you made to accommodate the pandemic change your field management practices? Could you offer better security solutions by incorporating those changes long-term? How have your short-, medium-, and long-term goals changed? These are good questions to ask even during less turbulent times.
2. Upgrade Your Scheduling
One of the great weaknesses of security businesses tends to be their scheduling processes. A lot of organizations in this industry use paper- and phone-based scheduling methods that are outdated and highly inefficient. In the traditional model, technicians are given a schedule for the day which has often been set manually. They then leave the office with only a phone for sending and receiving updates.
This approach has almost no communication with the back office and is very inflexible. Furthermore, it is an old-fashioned process that is completely unnecessary in 2021. A more modern scheduling solution could help your business to be more efficient, agile, and accurate.
3. Increase Data Visibility
What does your business data availability look like? Is it in silos or does everyone have access to the information they need to succeed? For most security businesses, the answer is the former.
Unfortunately, opaqueness can cause serious issues for many businesses. It can frustrate clients by slowing down and complicating processes. For example, if a customer calls about a warranty issue, the representative answering the phone may not have immediate access to that information. Low data availability can also frustrate decision-making processes. In the digital age, it is important for dealers to make decisions based on hard data. Increasing your data visibility can give you a competitive edge.
4. Reevaluate Your Field Management Processes
As mentioned above, scheduling staff in the field is a major issue for many security dealers. However, this isn’t the only process that can be antiquated. For example, many teams record the results of work orders on paper receipts. In fact, the details of those work orders may only be recorded on paper, leaving them easily susceptible to damage or misplacement. These processes could be significantly improved with the right technology.
Examine your field management processes. How do your people in the field know what to do? How do they send and receive updates from the back office? Improving those practices can help your business to thrive.
5. Change Your Billing Management
Another major business process that can likely benefit from a revamp is billing. Typically, security businesses have separate software systems for client proposals, invoicing, and work orders. Additionally, many teams are doing old-fashioned invoicing that involves a lot of manual work.
An upgrade to this could realize many benefits. For example, you reduce the need for multiple points of data entry. Less reentry of information leads to fewer errors. Additionally, you may be able to start billing customers for partial cycles, earning additional revenue.
6. Focus on Comprehensive Solutions
Finally, as you plan for the future, try to take a comprehensive mindset for your solutions. Don’t implement new tools and processes that only deal with half of a problem. Instead, try to think broadly through an entire workflow.
When your processes are more integrated, you will reduce inefficiency and run a more profitable business. This can also increase data visibility. Additionally, you may be able to solve multiple goals with a single solution. For example, integrating your proposals, invoicing, scheduling, and customer data into a new security financial management tool could help to ensure that 2021 is your most successful year yet.
Finding Success in the Security Industry in 2021
The above six ideas will help you find success in the new year. You can bring these improvements to life with a financial management solution from Bold Group. SedonaOffice and AlarmBiller are integrated solutions that can help you manage all of your back-office processes while improving your field management. Contact Bold Group today to learn more.