Why More Businesses Are Ditching Keys and Making the Move to Simple, Secure Smart Access Control Systems
Small and Medium Businesses Adopting Smart Technologies
As business leaders look for more ways to be efficient, smart technologies are providing a solution. A recent survey found that 64% of small- to medium-size businesses are increasing technology investments, doubling from two years prior.1 Businesses are not only using technology to move faster, but they’re also looking to simplify. As a result, they are looking to unload non-strategic elements of business operations to focus attention and energy on their core business.
Access Control is Prime Target for Upgrading
Access control is an overlooked area that can produce significant time savings and improve productivity. Access control plays an essential role in employee productivity, safety, and protecting business assets. However, as a non-strategic element, it’s not where most businesses want to spend their time and energy.
This guide will explore how SMB leaders can understand:
- How to use technology to save time and keep focus.
- How keys are dragging down their business.
- Why smart access control is critical for small businesses today.
- The challenges of upgrading traditional access control systems.
- How new technology and services make it easier than ever for small businesses to upgrade to a smart access control system.
Small Business Leaders are Stretched Thin
It’s no secret that small business owners and managers put in long hours, wearing multiple hats and juggling endless responsibilities. A Business Pulse survey found that most small business owners work more than 50 hours a week. Around 1 in 5 small business owners top 60 hours a week, and more than 80% say they routinely work weekends and nights. Perhaps most importantly, a survey by Inc. Magazine estimated that small business owners spend more than 20 hours every week on non-revenue-generating responsibilities.
Technologies Easing the Workload — and Driving Growth
Savvy small business owners increasingly turn to cloud-based technologies and service providers to help them offload business operations. In fact, around 85% of small businesses are now using software as a service (SaaS) technologies. The potential of these cost-effective and scalable technologies goes well beyond better productivity. Deloitte estimates that small businesses that fully utilize technologies can double their revenue per employee and generate four times more annual revenue growth. But that same report notes that 80% of small businesses in the U.S. “are not taking full advantage of digital tools.” One quick-win strategy for leveraging technology: upgrading to a smart access control solution.
The problem with keys
What’s wrong with keys and traditional access control today?
Inconvenient, Poor User Experience
Keys are one more thing for employees as well as business leaders to remember and are often forgotten or lost. The use of keys also portrays an outdated or non-modern image to customers or prospective employees.
Time-Consuming, Inefficient Administration
Key-based access control shoulders small business leaders with the hassle of copying, distributing, tracking, and collecting keys. Along with the responsibility to change locks or rekey doors (at a steep cost of $100-$250 per lock). This key management steals time from focusing on core business growth.
Limited Control & Security
Keys are analog: There’s no digital trail of who’s coming and going, whether it’s employees or guests. And an unlocked door is just that: unlocked. There’s no easy way to control or shut off access once a door is unlocked or when an unauthorized person has a key.
Why Smart Access Control is critical for business today
Protecting the Business
Security and IT professionals identified physical security breaches and insider threats as two of the most impactful threats to their organizations. In fact, employees cause 90% of significant theft losses — and the cost of employee theft is rising 15% annually. 7 Moreover, the “great resignation” and the current challenging labor market only amplify the risk of managing employee access and theft.
Ensuring Safe Workplaces
Evolving requirements around visitor tracking, limiting capacity and contact tracing are complex logistical nightmares for small business leaders. Smart access control provides real-time monitoring of who is coming and going and how many people are currently in the workspace with remote access rights management, notifications, and even temporary pin codes.
Enabling Workfore Flexibility & Retention
The way employees work in businesses, big and small, is shifting. Many small companies continue to embrace hybrid and flexible work models, letting employees work when they work best. This approach has helped capture productivity benefits and is a powerful strategy for recruitment and retention. Smart access control solutions provide remote management flexibility for quick and easy changes to work schedules and access privileges, while enhancing convenience of access methods from access cards, fobs, and mobile devices.
Challenges of Upgrading traditional Access Control Systems
While the benefits of upgrading an access control system are easily identified, there are several challenges with the traditional upgrade approach:
Time and Effort Required
The traditional approach requires months of time and draws your focus away from the business. You are responsible for defining access control needs, selecting the proper hardware, managing installation and training staff. All that time and effort could be spent growing your business.
Frustrating Process
The conventional upgrade process puts the burden on the business owner. Selecting solution hardware and software providers, finding an installer, and then only to watch them point fingers at each other. And after they are gone, you are left in charge of support, future upgrades and repairs.
Inflexible and High Upfront Costs
Business leaders say cost is one of the biggest obstacles to upgrading physical access control solutions. Yet, ignoring the potential risk and far greater cost of a security breach. One of the biggest drivers of cost is that traditional systems are not flexible or scalable to grow with your business needs.
New Technology and Services Make it Easier Than Ever to
Upgrade Smart Access Control Systems
There is an easier, better way to get smart access control — simplified. SimpleAccess offers a service and solution that manages everything from design to implementation and provides ongoing support. So you can stay focused on your business.
Building Your Trusted Solution
The SimpleAccess team of experts works with you to design a system that best meets your needs and budget. They help you select from the wide array of hardware, technologies, and leading brands, curating the best options for you.
Affordable Smart Technologies
SimpleAccess technologies have lower upfront costs to fit within your budget. The SimpleAccess system is designed to scale and grow with your business needs, allowing you to start the upgrade process today and easily add more later.
End-to-End Service
The SimpleAccess team of experts manages all the details from design, installation and configuration to onboarding and training. So, you can stay focused on your business and you save time and money when upgrading to the best smart access control system for your needs.
Cloud-Based Security + Control
The SimpleAccess platform gives you complete control of your doors and locks anytime, anywhere — with no IT resources required. Receive notifications and remotely manage user security access, lock or unlock doors and monitor who’s accessing your business in near-real time.
Smart Access Control. Simplified.
You are busy, and your time should be spent on growing your business — not managing tedious tasks and key management. Upgrading your access control is one of the easiest ways to enhance your work environment, improve security and get more time back. While access control systems have existed for years, SimpleAccess simplifies the process of upgrading by providing a comprehensive service and support model that solves the traditional installation and upfront cost challenges with a unique one-stop, start-to-finish service. As a result, more and more small- and medium-sized businesses are leveraging SimpleAccess to get everything they want — and nothing they don’t. They’re stepping up to the security and administration of access control, giving their employees and customers a seamless experience — and giving themselves more time to focus on growing their businesses.
Skip the Hassle with SimpleAccess
Traditional Projects: You Do All The Work
The traditional upgrade path is cumbersome. Hardware selection, finding an installer you trust, and maintaining your system all fall on you.
Long, uncertain, and you own nearly all of it
