Article written by Brian Higgins, President of Group 77, Robolliance Expert

The topic of budgets is quite important for those working in or seeking a career in security management. Initially, some security management students don’t appreciate that there is a need to learn about budgets and they are quite often shocked to find out that they will be required to justify their budget for security. They wonder why anyone would have to justify the cost of protecting a company’s employees or assets.

But those who hold leadership positions in security are quite familiar with the rigors and often difficulties in justifying the cost of security. It is even more difficult to justify an increase to the budget when attempting to enhance the level of security by upgrading and adding security measures. Ironically, this effort may be made more difficult if the security program has been successful. It seems to make sense that if the security program is working, our employees have not been harmed and our loss is at a minimum, to ask “why would we need to increase the security.” 

Quite often budget increases and expenditures on new products require security directors to show a Return-on-Investment (ROI.) From a purely financial standpoint, the need to show ROI makes sense. There is only so much money that can be spent to operate any organization. When looking at budgets from an organization-wide point of view the money used on one program or product often represents money not being spent somewhere else.

To prove the true ROI for the purchase of a new product, the requirement is to show the cost of doing business before the new product compared to the cost of doing business after the new product is installed, functioning and integrated into the organization. Assuming that, after the new product is functioning as intended, the cost of doing business is less or the production is higher creating higher revenue the increase in revenue must be less than the overall cost of the new product. 

This exercise in proving ROI is extremely difficult in security. In those very specific and limited instances where an unwanted event or events are occurring and the addition of a new security product such as a camera, access control, or added security officer eliminates or greatly reduces the impact of the event(s) the ROI is proven by the reduction in losses expressed in costs compared to the expense of purchasing and using the new product. In most instances, ROI of the security budget is in all honesty a guess that is explained in hypotheticals. There will have to be a guess of what the company would lose in costs through reduction in production or business or recovering from the hypothetical, unwanted event if security did not operate as it had or the products used were not installed. It is all theoretical but not tangible, especially if your security program is successful and there are very few unwanted security related instances that result in a financial loss.

What is provable is the ROI of purchasing and using a new product that allows you to operate the same or higher level of security at a lower cost. Quite often there is an ROI when using automated systems to reduce staffing costs. This ability to reduce costs with technology is why the security market will continue to grow. It is viewed almost as fact that the need for more security and a greater level of security will continue to increase. If we continue to operate security departments and companies the same way the increased costs due to the growing need in security may become cost prohibitive but definitely come from the bottom line. Cision PR News points to a study that states the already multi-billion-dollar security market will continue to grow at a significant pace with the Global cyber security market projected to reach a size of $165.2 billion by 2023. One small segment, visual analytics, is projected to “reach 7.7 billion by 2023.

Anyone involved in providing or using guard services has observed the changes in that industry. As the margins decrease, operating large security companies to realize the appropriate returns seems to be the trend. Increases in minimum wage, taxes, healthcare, insurance and other personnel costs will eat deeper into margins for security guarding companies only to be passed onto the customer. At this point, it appears that those costs can only be offset by decreasing security or through the use of technology. The increase in security cameras continues to be enhanced through the advancement of the capabilities with the use of analytics. Access control systems continue to decrease in costs making electronic, automated, door locks more and more common place.

I believe the use of Autonomous Unmanned Ground Vehicles (A-UGV) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) is one of the times that a true ROI can be identified and proven. The capabilities of these vehicles and the sensors on them have greater capabilities than humans providing, in some instances, a greater level of security. The cost of one unmanned vehicle operating where a person used to be will reduce costs. When comparing the cost of one human being to the cost of the acquisition and operation one autonomous vehicle any security director can honestly use the term Return-on-Investment.

These vehicles will not take place of humans in security but rather take over the mundane and boring duties so that humans can focus on the more critical aspects of security. We will continue to use humans in security but as the need for security continues to grow we can add a blend of humans and robots. That is a great answer to the question of “How will we afford the requirement for a greater level of security in more areas of business?”