6 Questions You Should Ask When Thinking About Securing Business Premises

Because of this, businesses should treat securing their premises as seriously as they treat securing their IT systems.

To help you determine how this should be done, Adrian from Newgate, specialists in security solutions, has provided a list of six questions you should ask yourself when thinking about securing your business premises.

1. What is the location of your commercial premises?

Effective security starts with securing your perimeter and this is a whole lot easier if you can put some space between your premises and areas which are open to the general public.

If you can’t then you absolutely must do everything you can to secure your standard entry points and, in this day and age, that really means having automatic locks. These don’t have to be a huge inconvenience to staff, especially with passcards, but they will go a long way to deterring opportunistic burglars.

According to crime statistics, 70% of burglars gain entry through a door and 30% gain entry through an unlocked door or window.

2. Does your commercial premise have a private car-park?

If it does, not only do you need to secure it, but you also need to ensure that it can’t be used as cover for people trying to gain access to your main building.

The good news is that a lot of the measures which will enhance your security will also enhance your health and safety. For example, proper lighting will not only deter burglars but also make life much easier for legitimate visitors.

3. Do you own commercial vehicles?

If you do then you need to treat each one essentially as an extension of your commercial premises. As a minimum, you need to ensure that they’re parked safely and – ideally - that immobilizing devices are used, e.g. locks for the steering wheel and gear stick.

Not only do you want to avoid theft from your vehicles but you also want to avoid your vehicles being used as weapons to attack your main commercial premises.

4. Is any part of your commercial premises regularly left empty?

According to statistics, 60% of burglars get access through forced entry and this is a whole lot easier when an area is regularly left empty. You can hinder this approach by using CCTV.

5. Do you regularly have visitors enter your commercial premises?

If you do then you need an effective way to identify legitimate visitors to avoid malicious actors simply blending in with the crowd. Depending on your industry, this may mean either having a clear delineation between public areas (e.g. a shop floor) and private areas (e.g. the stock area) or using visitor passes (or a combination of both).

6. Have you recently had a break-in or burglary?

If you’ve been burgled before, you’re at a higher risk of being burgled again. To avoid this, it’s important to not just fix the security issue which led to the previous break-in but to also undertake a full security risk assessment to see if there are any other potential issues.