How Easy Are You?

It’s a question that we all must ask ourselves at some point: “How easy am I to deal with?”

We all have to answer this question in all aspects of our lives. From the personal aspect, how easy are we to deal with as spouses, parents, siblings and children of our parents? In this sense, “easy” will be defined as how well you listen and absorb, handle stress and react to success. From the security consultant’s standpoint, it means how simple it is to see and realize your value from your client’s perspective and whether or not your price is worth that. I want to spend a little time defining what this means from an integrator’s standpoint and from a consultant’s point of view.

Over the last few years, I have heard from integrators that the biggest challenge isn’t necessarily landing projects, but instead keeping margin. By margin, I mean enough of a margin to fund the non-billable items that it takes to be a well-respected, educated and low-turnover integrator. If you have an installation, service and sales function, then you have a bucket full of associated costs that go along with that:

Employees. Finding good technicians, keeping them certified and then keeping them on staff can lead up to a big cost, one that isn’t appreciated by the end user even though they gauge the effectiveness of your company on this component. I am sure there are few out there who have not heard the saying, “Happy employees make and bring happy clients.”

Installation costs. Along with having good employees comes having project managers or lead technicians, depending on your size, that can actually take a project and bring it in on scope, schedule and budget. I would venture to say that inside the core structure of any good project manager is the ultimate ability to manage these three aspects for any project. From an end user’s standpoint, the perfect formula is beyond scope, under budget and on schedule. From the typical integrator’s standpoint, it is normally on scope, on budget and under schedule.

Project management. A good project manager will take scope, schedule and budget, and focus on them individually to ensure that they work together seamlessly.

For scope, he/she focuses on what was sold and whether it will be achievable within the budget and schedule confines. Furthermore, he/she will look at the scope and brainstorm about other issues that typically come up during projects with similar scope and address them early with the client to lay the ground for either consciously excluding these items or providing them at an additional cost.

For budget, a good project manager will first look at the project as sold and gauge, whether or not the budget is achievable, and highlight the threats to the budget. It’s these threats that pose the greatest risk to the margin because profits typically are the first to be pilfered when costs overrun. These threats are typically defined as one of three categories: materials cost too much, labor costs too much or scope creep.

Cost of materials and labor. These only cost more inside a project when there is a lack of focus on what is being provided and the tracking of those materials to that project. Labor costs are the big expense and can be directly related to scope creep. Adding an additional contact on a nearby door, for example, goes a long way for pleasing the client and doesn’t cost that much in material. However, the lost labor cost of running the wire, landing it on the input and programming costs more in labor than it will in material. One of these is probably acceptable without much damage to the margin.

I was recently on a project where I was looking over what was installed versus what was sold. It turned out that there were 12 more door contacts than were in the design and without any additional price request. That hurts margin.

Finding the fine line between what is acceptable and what is not will define how you handle scope creep, which mostly affects labor costs.

The Ease of Customer Service

Most integrators that I interact with from the consultant’s standpoint place their best customer service representatives on the front end of the project to approach potential clients and close the deal. Once the deal is closed, it gets handed off to operations, which is either a project manager or lead installer. After the completion of the install, the next best customer service representative takes over, also known as the service department.

So, what happens during the operations portion of a project when conflict arises? The typical operations lead/decision maker is more about counting beans and watching scope and schedule than looking at what the next project might be out of that client or the impact of a small scale item with the potential of becoming a big scale problem. Here’s where good employees, good project managers and customer service have to do with being easy.

The formula that end users and consultants use is:

Ease of interaction + Technician knowledge of product/install + Reason for change order requests = “Easy”

It’s not a difficult formula. The ease of interaction is a result of responses from the front line sales, the mid-term operation and the conclusion from service.

During these responses, we heard more between “That’s going to be a change…” and “This issue was a result of something changing in the project and the cost for that will be...” These and the technician on site handling equipment issues without them ever knowing it was an issue set the tone for the reaction from the end user every time.

It’s tough enough to maintain margin in a project when it was put into the dirt going into the project. End users, consultants and architects aren’t typically opposed to valid change requests, but have no patience for change requests without advance notice of an issue with subsequent justification for costs. There will still be those items that will cost more to pursue than to just throw in. Make those the small ones, and make them visible afterward, but not in a way that expresses, “I did you a favor.”

This article originally appeared in the July 2014 issue of Security Today.

Featured

  • Report: 47 Percent of Security Service Providers Are Not Yet Using AI or Automation Tools

    Trackforce, a provider of security workforce management platforms, today announced the launch of its 2025 Physical Security Operations Benchmark Report, an industry-first study that benchmarks both private security service providers and corporate security teams side by side. Based on a survey of over 300 security professionals across the globe, the report provides a comprehensive look at the state of physical security operations. Read Now

    • Guard Services

  • Identity Governance at the Crossroads of Complexity and Scale

    Modern enterprises are grappling with an increasing number of identities, both human and machine, across an ever-growing number of systems. They must also deal with increased operational demands, including faster onboarding, more scalable models, and tighter security enforcement. Navigating these ever-growing challenges with speed and accuracy requires a new approach to identity governance that is built for the future enterprise. Read Now

  • Eagle Eye Networks Launches AI Camera Gun Detection

    Eagle Eye Networks, a provider of cloud video surveillance, recently introduced Eagle Eye Gun Detection, a new layer of protection for schools and businesses that works with existing security cameras and infrastructure. Eagle Eye Networks is the first to build gun detection into its platform. Read Now

  • Report: AI is Supercharging Old-School Cybercriminal Tactics

    AI isn’t just transforming how we work. It’s reshaping how cybercriminals attack, with threat actors exploiting AI to mass produce malicious code loaders, steal browser credentials and accelerate cloud attacks, according to a new report from Elastic. Read Now

  • Pragmatism, Productivity, and the Push for Accountability in 2025-2026

    Every year, the security industry debates whether artificial intelligence is a disruption, an enabler, or a distraction. By 2025, that conversation matured, where AI became a working dimension in physical identity and access management (PIAM) programs. Observations from 2025 highlight this turning point in AI’s role in access control and define how security leaders are being distinguished based on how they apply it. Read Now

Most   Popular

New Products

  • EasyGate SPT and SPD

    EasyGate SPT SPD

    Security solutions do not have to be ordinary, let alone unattractive. Having renewed their best-selling speed gates, Cominfo has once again demonstrated their Art of Security philosophy in practice — and confirmed their position as an industry-leading manufacturers of premium speed gates and turnstiles.

  • Compact IP Video Intercom

    Viking’s X-205 Series of intercoms provide HD IP video and two-way voice communication - all wrapped up in an attractive compact chassis.

  • Connect ONE’s powerful cloud-hosted management platform provides the means to tailor lockdowns and emergency mass notifications throughout a facility – while simultaneously alerting occupants to hazards or next steps, like evacuation.

    Connect ONE®

    Connect ONE’s powerful cloud-hosted management platform provides the means to tailor lockdowns and emergency mass notifications throughout a facility – while simultaneously alerting occupants to hazards or next steps, like evacuation.