For business owners and managers, protecting your profits is a crucial part of ensuring the success and continuity of your livelihood. Crime remains a huge concern for all types of businesses, and taking the necessary precautions to safeguard your hard-earned profits can help to prevent any devastating losses from occurring and ensure that your company’s future is not at stake.
Risk assessment
Carrying out an adequate security risk assessment can help you to identify both the current and potential threats to your business and implement the appropriate measures to reduce these risks. As well as covering the known vulnerable areas, you also need to pre-empt potential areas of weakness to gain maximum cover of your property. For example, a thorough security risk assessment should cover the established points of entry, as well as windows, fire escapes or glass walls.
Security measures
Once you have identified the high-risk areas, some permanent security measures will need to be taken to provide you with peace of mind in knowing that your business is protected. If needed, you may want to strengthen doors, apply locks, bars or meshes to windows and install security lighting to deter thieves. For added reassurance, you may also want to install a CCTV system and an alarm, with warning signs to notify would-be burglars that the building is under protection. Having these types of security systems in place can also help to reduce your insurance premiums. High-quality security equipment is available from reputable online security suppliers.
Insurance
Even for small businesses, having a comprehensive insurance plan is crucial, as it can protect you from both internal and external risks. Whether you suffer from accidental or deliberate damage, your insurance plan should be tailored to the specific needs of your business and cover all of your assets. Some of the insurance covers you may want to purchase for your business include fire cover, burglary cover, money insurance, data protection, liability protection and anything that can interrupt business operations and consequently affect profits.
When purchasing an insurance cover, it’s important that you declare all of your expensive items that are kept on site and keep hold of their associated documents to ensure that you will be reimbursed in the event of a break-in or disaster. It is also vital that your business complies with the rules set out by the insurer, as any loss that is a result of negligence may impede your ability to be reimbursed.
Good practices
Stock checks should be conducted on a regular basis and recorded so that you can quickly notice any inconsistencies or losses of your property. For computers, you will need to protect confidential information, including any financial records, with restricted entry, reliable backup systems or lockable
Filing cabinets
Whilst you should try to keep as little money on the premises as possible, it may also be worth having a secure safe on site to store large quantities of money. You may also want to consider securing expensive equipment to floors or walls.
