Managing large premises is not easy - be it business or residential. From the numerous, hour-long discussions that we have had with various organisations across industries, we are now certain of two things:
a) Premises management is an important part of business in terms of efficiency, cost of operations, safety, security, and, last but not the least, brand image.
Read: Factory Update – Entry-Exit Mismanagement Now A Thing Of The Past
b) Premises management is a relatively neglected part of the administration of businesses in India, even in organisations where security is of prime concern.
Prevention
is Cure
In this blog, we discuss some of the important ways that digitisation of premises management can prevent malpractices in businesses across sectors - be it corporate, manufacturing, residential, education, hospitality, etc. - resulting in significant business impact over a period of time.
And, we are talking of, especially, malpractices that usually go unnoticed by the management and are nearly impossible to track and monitor.
Labour issues: Labourer management in any business is a challenge. However, a significant part of labourer issues faced by the management of organisations can be resolved at the entry and exit points by the use of a digital premises management system.
Since a digital premises management system allows complete authentication of all entry and exits, the problem of labourer proxy gets eliminated for once and all.
Read: Chuck Those Registers – Manage Your Staff at Your Fingertips
Also, because the in and out time of all individuals is captured instantly, administration is aware of all details such as punctuality/regularity and time spent on/off premises. This eases payment and other labourer issues. Because of the same reasons, admin can also easily handle vendors supplying labourers and eradicate any malpractices at the root.
A foolproof, digital premises management solution can eliminate these malpractices once and for all at entry points.
Unwanted Visitors: Entry and presence of unwanted visitors in the premises is nearly impossible to monitor as most of the time the visitors may get an entry on the basis that they are known to staff, employees, or even temporary labourers.
Using a digital premises management solution, the administration can prevent unwanted visitors from loitering in the premises or using office amenities.
Material pilferage: Material pilfering is an ongoing issue, especially, in the hospitality industry where consumables and such small items that are hard to monitor and track are pilfered on a regular basis.
While it is a day-to-day nuisance, business owners would agree that over a period of time such malpractices amount to huge unavoidable losses. A foolproof, digital premises management solution can eliminate these issues once and for all at entry points.
Manipulation of information: A lot of information gets manipulated at entry and exit points, for example, bills, fuel claims, false claims from vendor - such as charging for five items when only four were delivered, etc.
Read: Water Supply Tankers – Who’s Monitoring Delivery At Your Premises?
A smart premises management system should be able to capture all information at the entry point without any scope for manipulation at the ground level. Administration also get access to all such details on the go.
Misuse of resources such as vehicles, materials, and assets drastically reduce - to near zero.
Misuse of resources: Misuse of resources is a common problem that the management has to grapple with daily, such as, company vehicles being misused.
A smart premises management system is highly effective in preventing such activities. Cases of misuse of resources such as vehicles, materials, and assets drastically reduce - to near zero.
Loss of bills and invoices: Loss of information such as bills and invoices of vehicles, water, materials, etc. is another challenge that organisations face on a regular basis. This leads to discrepancies and delay in payments.
All of these problems can be eliminated through a digital facility management solution.
Theft and loss of assets: When assets move from one location to another or are taken out for service, they are always at a risk of being lost, stolen, or tampered with - the costly parts inside the items being at a higher risk of getting stolen, e.g., motor from sewing machines.
Since proper records for asset movements are not maintained at the gate, the whereabouts of assets are difficult to track and monitor.
There are also issues of missing returnable items for example - computer taken out for service but not returned, discrepancy in the material quantity received or sent, etc. This also entices people to steal since they know that proper information is not maintained and they can easily evade action by the management.
A digital premises management solution monitors and tracks assets, thereby, reducing the chances of theft and loss to a great extent.
Conclusions
There are of course many other issues that the management of organisations face on a day-to-day basis that they cannot do much about as manual monitoring and tracking of these malpractices is cumbersome at the least and nearly impossible at worst. Even though we all know that in the long run, if unresolved, these problems create significant negative business impact.
A robust, digital premises management system is the key.
