8 reasons how electronic key management can benefit your business
9 May 2022
Keys are everywhere. Every company can tell a story of how a misplaced key interrupted its operations. A lost or even just a misplaced key can affect your employee’s time, your project timeline, and most importantly your bottom line. We often speak with companies where the financial impact of losing a key goes into the thousands of dollars, not including the labor time wasted.
The name of the game here is prevention. Once the key is lost and the building must be rekeyed the expense has occurred. With electronic key management systems, the expenses, and the headache to communicate with the insurance can be avoided.
There are 8 advantages for your business to using an electronic key cabinet to organize your keys.
- Higher security level for your facility & assets thanks to an electronic key cabinet
- No errors are possible with an electronic key control system
- Detailed audit trails in the electronic key management system
- Finding keys is easier and faster with an electronic key control system
- Reduces losing keys
- Staying in compliance using an electronic key management system
- Digital upgrade of physical offline keys
- Enhance your internal support infrastructure with an electronic key cabinet
1. Higher security level for your facility & assets thanks to an electronic key cabinet
Most facilities in the world use physical keys to secure their doors. The disadvantage of physical keys is their analog nature, where it is difficult to manage and secure them properly. There always is a trade-off between security and efficiency. An electronic key cabinet avoids this trade-off as you can store important keys of maintenance rooms, server rooms or storage rooms in a secured and locked location. Electronic key cabinets have robust metal housings and sensors that therefore improve the overall security of your perimeter. Without having a reliable automated way of key management, you do not really know who has access to rooms and assets.
2. No errors are possible with an electronic key control system
Organizing more than a dozen keys requires a lot of lists, documents, guidelines, and communication effort. With so many different elements it is nearly impossible to keep them all up to date and to be sure that each employee knows their permissions regarding keys. In consequence, involuntarily overstepping rights is unavoidable. To reduce this, employees become overcautious when needing a key, increasing the administrative effect even more.
All of this can be avoided with an electronic key control system that gives employees physical access only to keys they have permission to. No ambiguity and no stress. The system can further be configured on how long a key can be removed for use and when it needs to be returned. Employees can add valuable information as a note on the system.
Organizing more than a dozen keys requires a lot of lists, documents, guidelines, and communication effort. With so many different elements it is nearly impossible to keep them all up to date and to be sure that each employee knows their permissions regarding keys. In consequence, involuntarily overstepping rights is unavoidable. To reduce this, employees become overcautious when needing a key, increasing the administrative effect even more.
All of this can be avoided with an electronic key control system that gives employees physical access only to keys they have permission to. No ambiguity and no stress. The system can further be configured on how long a key can be removed for use and when it needs to be returned. Employees can add valuable information as a note on the system.
3. Detailed audit trails in the electronic key management system
In the hectic day-to-day operations of every business, it happens that employees hurry to fill out the paper forms or simply don’t do it as it is seen as a burden. By automating this process, security is not seen as a burden anymore but rather embraced. The documentation happens in the backend when keys are removed and returned. These interactions supply a wealth of useful business insight that can be visualized in reports. Most electronic key cabinet providers offer a cloud-based backup solution, ensuring that no data is lost.
4. Finding keys is easier and faster with an electronic key control system
Having access to detailed audit trails makes finding a key a piece of cake. With a few clicks in the key management software, you can see who took the key and when was the key last taken. Our customers tell us that 95% of the keys are found within an hour. The other times serve to reveal inconsistent processes and undocumented communication to the administration.
5. Reduces losing keys
Administrators can set alerts on the return time of key removals. When exceeded, the supervisor or employee receives an e-mail, text or pop-up alert informing them. This gives the opportunity to act immediately, which increases the chances of recovery drastically.
Reducing lost keys means reducing direct and indirect costs.
If a key gets lost the cost of renewing it quickly adds up. Especially when losing a master or submaster key the process of rekeying every lock on the facility can become a major business expense. Not only the direct cost associated with the exchange of locks need to be kept in mind. The whole labor time spent by your employees could have been invested in more useful tasks.
6. Staying in compliance using an electronic key management system
Losing a master key can also entail further headaches down the line. In our 20 years of experience customers told us that insurance companies are very wary when such an event occurs, because of eventual legal repercussions. In some industries and some countries such as car dealers in the UK or home care services in Germany, insurance companies will offer better rates to businesses that use an electronic key cabinet.
7. Digital upgrade of physical offline keys
Modern electronic key management systems provide customers with a smartphone app for managers to receive real-time information and act on them on the go. Releasing a key remotely in an emergency, to receiving push notifications when a key is returned late can all reduce administrative workload. Therefore, the administrator has a digital representation of its buildings, rooms, tools, and vehicles and can interact with them quickly.
Modern electronic key management systems provide customers with a smartphone app for managers to receive real-time information and act on them on the go. Releasing a key remotely in an emergency, to receiving push notifications when a key is returned late can all reduce administrative workload. Therefore, the administrator has a digital representation of its buildings, rooms, tools, and vehicles and can interact with them quickly.
8. Enhance your internal support infrastructure with an electronic key cabinet
With video communication directly on the electronic key cabinet it provides your business with all the tools to support your workers quickly and efficiently. In case a vehicle breaks down, the employee can immediately call for assistance on the key cabinet. In case there is an issue in the server room that needs to be managed quickly, rather than finding out who is the right contact you just call the administrator group through the electronic key cabinet.
With video communication directly on the electronic key cabinet it provides your business with all the tools to support your workers quickly and efficiently. In case a vehicle breaks down, the employee can immediately call for assistance on the key cabinet. In case there is an issue in the server room that needs to be managed quickly, rather than finding out who is the right contact you just call the administrator group through the electronic key cabinet.
If you want to know more about electronic key management systems click here below:
