As unemployment continues to rise, along with gas and grocery prices, finally even the President is beginning to admit that we are now in a recession. But what exactly does that mean to us business owners across the country?
Well, first there is the obvious…sales reduce, making it necessary to cut costs in any way we can. Many of us have a tendency to reduce unneccessary expenses that might have slid by us in the budget in previous months without a second thought. Reduction in staff…which adds to the unemployment rates in our area. And usually an increase in advertising, to try to find more customers.
As we are considering cut-backs at the office to help us weather the stormy economy, most of us begin to consider the unknown losses or find previously undetermined losses by counting our inventory, comparing to stock orders and finding out where our stock or money has been leaking. The unfortunate thing: during times of economic downturn, business losses usually increase due to theft by employees and customers.
A quality business security camera system can help to reduce theft
As the Unemployment and Foreclosure rates in our country continue to climb, and so do prices of food and necessities, people get desperate, because they cannot afford to continue their life the same way they lived before. Unemployment doesn’t just affect those “other cities”. These displaced people are in our towns, our neighborhoods, and might be coming into our businesses to find anything that they can get their hands on. In Chicago, nearby to our Platinum CCTV Showroom in Naperville, the big talk on the news has been about the increase in violent crime…with shootings at and around the “Taste of Chicago” this year, gang activity at surrounding local town festivals, and increases in burglaries and even bank robberies, yet the news is turning on new Police Superintendent Jody Weis, saying his tactics in the last 2-3 months since his appointment to the position have led to these increases. Why isn’t anyone looking at exactly what is happening? 2 months of changes to try to shake up the police department in Chicago isn’t going to have this drastic of an affect in such a short time…We might not agree with everything he has done in his short stint as the superintendent, but honestly…times have been tough, and they are getting tougher for many, many people.
Not to say I would advocate going out and robbing a bank, or even stealing from your local convenience store, but I can say that these types of economic conditions can make otherwise good people do things that they would never even dream of normally. So as business owners, while we are trying to keep our businesses up and running and reduce losses, lets take a look at what steps we have taken to protect our own businesses.
Security cameras can help you keep watch over both your employees and your customers, providing you with an infinite source of information to prevent theft, and provide evidence when something does occur. People think twice about stealing when they are stared in the face by a camera, plain and simple. When things start showing up as losses in the bottom line, it provides us a way to track our inventory back to the source of the theft, and quickly rectify the situation. If we are going to be trimming the fat in our businesses, lets at least make sure that the dishonest employees are the ones that we are removing from our facilities. But Security cameras go beyond just loss of money from the register or product from the shelves. We can easily use these same security cameras to monitor customer – employee interactions, to determine how customers are responding to our personnel or procedures, so that we can make on-the-fly adjustments to our techniques to better our customers’ experience and improve our sales or service results.
View cameras right on your PDA phone with our Alnet DVR Cards
Many systems, like our Alnet Systems PC Based DVRs or Standalone DVRs provide the capability to watch your business even when you aren’t there. After all, no matter how much we trust our employees, we trust our own eyes better. Some of our systems even provide PDA remote viewing of your Security Cameras capabilities right from a Windows Mobile PDA Phone or Windows Mobile Smartphone.
While in the past, a business needed to invest $10K to $40K for a quality security camera system. Some Security camera companies out there still won’t even write an estimate for less than that, even though the cost of technology has dropped drastically in the past 5 years. So that would mean that only the larger businesses would be able to afford safety and security. REALISTICALLY, every business should be protected, and thankfully a quality security camera system does NOT have to cost that much. Platinum CCTV in Naperville, IL has been helping Thousands of businesses and homeowners find the protection they need at affordable rates throughout the country online and in person. With 2-Camera systems starting at $200 and 4-Camera security systems starting at $300, with NO ONGOING MONTHLY CHARGES and allowing for remote access to your cameras, there is no reason that your business isn’t protected.
Let us help you find a system that will suit your needs AND budget. At least get something in-place and recording, then we can help you expand it later. But don’t wait until after something happens…unfortunately we answer calls everyday from people who did wait…and they wish they hadn’t.
Find out about our Naperville, IL Security Camera Showroom
Or purchase business security camera systems online from our online store
Hoping your business stays safe, and never really NEEDs the camera system you installed.
-Michael-
