These days, many companies don’t merely target local clients. They hope to expand their reach worldwide. While this is to be expected with tech companies like Amazon or Google, it is also increasingly prevalent in the world of security providers.

While international expansion offers many opportunities, it also presents its fair share of challenges. How do you manage teams when guards are located in different cities or countries? How do you respond appropriately to an incident?

These new challenges make a quality security guard tour system essential for managing a global team. Here’s a closer look at how these modern tech tools can make a difference.

Live Dashboards

Understanding where your guards are located and what they are doing is an essential part of security management — especially in regards to accountability and incident response. With a widespread team, having a way to keep track of guard activities and provide support when needed will make all the difference in your ability to deliver quality results to a global client base.

Live dashboards provide a real-time view of guard activities, with mapping solutions displaying GPS and geo-fencing data. Customizable notifications can be displayed for a wide variety of items, including late shifts, inactive users, checkpoint scans, report submissions, and more. With so much data readily available, your office team will be able to oversee performance with ease, even when guards are spread across great distances.

The use of a live dashboard becomes even more valuable when dealing with unexpected setbacks. For example, if a guard doesn’t show up for an assigned shift, the dashboard system can be used to quickly locate the nearest available guard who could fill the assignment. Similarly, in an emergency situation, such features could make all the difference in helping your team quickly mitigate the problem by identifying the nearest support resources.

By providing a clear overview of the entire guard team, your back office staff will have no trouble managing a widespread group of security professionals.

Automation

How to Use a Security Guard Tour System for Global Management
The larger your team, the more time consuming this task becomes.

Automation is another vital aspect of today’s tech upgrades. After all, the large staff requirements of most global security companies means that a high number of communications and updates are sent out on a daily basis. The larger your team, the more time consuming this task becomes. Worse yet, when coordinating guard teams are spread out across multiple time zones, it can be hard for messages to arrive in a convenient manner.

This is where automation steps in. A modern security guard tour system uses automation to streamline various aspects of the work, improving efficiency and reducing the risk for human error.

For example, many guard tour systems make use of electronic checkpoints, which automatically record when a guard arrived at the location. When submitting reports, customizable templates allow certain areas (like location and timestamp) to be filled automatically, reducing how much time a guard needs to spend filling out reports.

Automation tools can also reduce the work of your back-office staff. For example, many systems are designed to automatically message a guard when a change has been made to their shift assignment. These messages can be delivered via text message, email, or even push notification — whatever option will be most convenient for the recipient. By automating these and other basic tasks, your office staff will be left with more time to focus on the managerial tasks that make the biggest difference for your global business.

A Global Mindset

Even when your guard team is spread over multiple countries, there is no reason why you can’t enjoy the efficiency and reliability of a smaller security provider. By taking advantage of the features available in today’s security guard tour systems, your guards and office staff will be better equipped to achieve the maximum performance in their jobs.