Providing security for your employees and customers is part of owning a business. Depending on where your business is located and what your business involves, having security cameras and an alarm system might not be enough. You may choose to have roaming security guards who visit the property on a rotating basis all day and night or you may want a guard that stays at your establishment. You then must decide if you want the guard to be armed or not and if so what type of weapons he or she will carry. Consider the following when trying to decide on your security measures.

Location

If your business is in an area of the city with little crime, you can feel safe with minimum security. Having cameras and a monitored alarm system should be enough to keep everyone and everything safe. If there will be employees or customers in the place late at night or in the early morning when the other businesses around you are closed, you can add in a roaming security guard for extra protection.

Business

A service related business that does not keep a lot of cash on hand should not need anything more than a monitored security system. Most of the time, this type of business is only open during the day when crimes are least likely to happen. However, if employees will be in the building at night, they can set the alarm to go off if anyone attempts to enter.

If your business requires there to be a lot of money on hand, has merchandise of extreme value, or involves weapons of any type it would be best to have an armed security guard on the property at all times. You may be able to use an unarmed guard during the day or if the location is not in a "high-risk" area. Keeping the guards unarmed, or at least with no visible weapons while customers are there can keep any situation from escalating to a deadly one. For example, if someone does attempt to rob the place during business hours, an armed guard might scare the thief into using his or her own weapon whereas an unarmed guard is not as intimidating.

Talk with a few security companies, such as Security Services Northwest, Inc, and neighboring businesses to get a good feel of what type of security is needed. When in doubt, it is never a bad idea to go a bit overboard. You may be able to reduce things after a while. However, you can never undo a security problem that happened because you did not have adequate protection.