While you won’t necessarily be keeping your personal valuables in your office, a burglary or break-in can still be a devastating event. Expensive equipment and sensitive data can all be stolen or lost during an event like this, so it’s essential for business owners to improve the security of their office space whenever possible. Here are a few things to consider when it comes to improving your office’s security.
Implement An Alarm System
One of the first suggestions we have is to fit an alarm system in your office space. While an alarm can be linked up to an alarm company allowing them to contact you or emergency services if it gets triggered, an alarm can serve as a deterrent to thieves, too. If thieves break in and an alarm begins blaring, they might either decide to flee the scene without taking anything or grab and go. If they choose the latter option, there is a lower risk of them taking anything too valuable, or at least not taking too much overall.
Get Internal And External Cameras
Another useful security solution is to install internal and external cameras around your office. Smart cameras will allow you to have immediate access to them, letting you check your office when you’re not there. You can even set them up to alert you if they detect movement. Simply having cameras on display can actually dissuade opportunist burglars from targeting your office, too, as they might not want to risk being identified.
Insure The Property And Your Equipment
Getting yourself some insurance for the property itself, as well as the equipment within it, is a very important step in protecting your office. Sometimes your deterrents simply won’t work, and a burglary might take place. If that happens, you’ll want to be able to reduce the impact this will have on your business. Commercial property insurance will help you with repairing broken windows and doors as well as structural damage, but it will also help you to replace lost stock, equipment, and anything else that you would need to continue with business as usual.
Backup Your Important Data Off-Site
Sometimes thieves aren’t specifically targeting your business to steal your data. Of course, in some cases, valuable data could be the target. However, a lot of the time, when data gets stolen in this way, it’s because thieves have stolen devices that have the data on them, such as computer systems or hard drives. Hard drives and computers can be replaced, but the data can’t if you haven’t backed it up. Make sure you make cloud backups of your important data and even consider having some storage devices with copies of that data but stored elsewhere.
Use Secure Safes And Lockboxes
Even planned burglaries will focus heavily on stealing easy-to-carry items. While thieves understand that valuables will be found in safes and lockboxes, they rarely come equipped with opening these things in a short time unless they’re some sort of experienced criminal gang. Storing valuable items in a safe and ensuring that safe cannot be easily carried off the premises is ideal. You should also avoid buying a low-quality safe to reduce the risk of thieves being able to easily crack it and take what’s inside. Just remember, a safe does not guarantee the items within are 100% secure; it simply reduces the chances of them being stolen significantly.