« Back Making the Right Choices in Tough Times By: Greg DeTardo, President, NuTech National Posted: November 12, 2008 With 2009 fast approaching, most retailers are predicting decreased comp store sales this holiday season. With the probability of an economic downturn that could last at best guess eighteen to twenty-four months, have you starting thinking about what affect this will have on your future budget demands and the likelihood of budget cuts as sales and profits fall? Over the last twenty-six years, I have worked with hundreds of retail loss prevention and asset protection professionals on how to most cost effectively manage their alarm business. This has always been an area with significant potential for reducing cost and is even more important in this economic climate. You may soon be under the scrutiny of cost cutters whose first thought for reducing cost is to reduce those departments that are considered a cost center that generates no sales. With this in mind, it is time to start looking for the low-hanging fruit when it comes to your security budget, specifically alarm monitoring. It has never ceased to amaze me as I visit with retailers how diverse their monitoring costs are for exactly the same services. Alarm monitoring is the most overlooked areas for reducing alarm costs. As you look at your current monitoring invoice, does it remind you of your phone bill with additional charges for open and close reporting, supervision, email alerts, maintenance, online access to account activity, and the list goes on and on. Yes, there are services that can be provided and should result in a higher monthly rate, but which items should cost more and what is an acceptable rate? Many retailers have similar alarm needs, store counts, and the same type of reporting, but their monitoring rates can vary as much as $60 a month for the exact same service. It is time to start thinking about reducing monitoring costs and using your budget dollars on the assets that deliver the best return on your investment—your personnel. The number one activity I find billed excessively is opening and closing reports. I have seen between $6 and $30 per month for this service. When we lived in a paper-based society, this was okay. Today you should now have access to this information via the Internet at no charge. You should be able to make code changes, set up exception reports, query alarm activity, and request service at no charge. Is your provider giving you the information and services you need at no additional charge? It’s time to start reducing the cost of your monitoring and finding the companies that are providing elevated service levels at a reduced rate. You should be able to find companies who are experts in converting accounts painlessly, and again, without cost. This is an immediate way to put hundreds of thousands of dollars in your bottom line. Consider this example: five dollars a month for 2,500 stores is a savings of $150,000 in one year. Once you figure out the answer to this question, you can start asking what your alarm provider is doing about reducing false alarms and tracking your alarm activity during non-business hours without charging you for supervision. There are solutions and at a significantly reduced price. Make the decision to manage your alarm budget dollars today, and you will not have to make a decision about managing your business with fewer personnel tomorrow.