Risk

Paper-Based Risk Assessments Don’t Cut It, But What Else Is There?

November 21, 2017 | 3 min read
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It’s the elephant in the room that security professionals are constantly covering with drapery or throw pillows: threat and vulnerability reports suck. Not because you’re unqualified, but because your tools are unqualified. Most consultants are using the wrong tools for the job, and they don’t even know it.

Notepads and word processing tools are great if you’re writing a letter, but they just aren’t designed to handle complex and in-depth reports. Threat and vulnerability assessments require specialized technology, not paper-based tools.

With paper-based reporting tools, you’re stuck with two types of risk assessment reports: unusable or uninformative. Your customers don’t want either one.

In-depth Reports Are Unusable

You’re thorough in your inspection, and your report shows it. You’ve spent a lot of time drafting a report that lists as much detail as you can give, with details on every issue and how to fix it. But all of that information is so complex, your customer doesn’t know where to begin. They can’t tell which items are highest priority—and even if they could, there’s no way to tackle all of those issues tactically.

Overwhelmed, the facilities manager skims through the executive summary, takes one look at the cost, and files the report away for good.

Or, you could make the report more usable.

Usable Reports Are Full of Fluff

You want to deliver a usable report, but that means keeping it basic. It’s easy to use, but it’s also light on information. Instead, you’ve filled it with regurgitated information that your customer already knows: Facility X is a three-story, 64,000-square-foot building with twenty electronic entrances and thirty security cameras. Here are the standards you should be meeting. Maybe you also list the most egregious issues you found during your inspection.

But you know that the facilities manager will just skim through the executive summary, take one look at the cost, and file the report away for good.

There is a third way. Few security consultants have the tools to do it, but they’re the ones who are keeping their customers safest. Because their reports generate action.

Digital Technology Makes Detailed Reports Usable

Your clients really do want a report they can use. They don’t want to toss it on a shelf, they don’t want to ignore your findings—they just want a different kind of report. A complete, usable report that’s full of detailed corrective actions. Only digital technology can make that possible.

What does it take to make a good report? A high-value risk assessment report includes these elements:

  • High visualization. Photos can help, floor plans even better. Exec summary in a picture.
  • Clear locations.
  • Clear explanations. What’s wrong?
  • Simple, actionable tasks.
  • Due date/completion date.
  • Person assigned and current status.
  • Actions performed.
  • Interactive elements.

Circadian Risk’s digital technology can generate reports that provide higher understanding. Interactive visual data creates an emotional context that motivates upper management to fix outstanding issues. Dense, lifeless paper-based reports can’t do that.

Handpicked related content: Top Things Your Physical Risk Assessment Customers Wish You Were Doing

How Circadian Risk Works

Circadian Risk software makes it possible to deliver risk assessments in greater detail than you’ve ever gone before—while cutting your reporting time by as much as 80%. Here’s how we do it:

  • Send electronic interviews before you arrive on-site. You’ll know what to expect before even setting foot on the premises.
  • Document every detail as you go. Use an iPad to take photos of the issues, then embed and annotate them within the software tool. Use geolocation or floor plans (available in early 2018) to pinpoint exact locations of each item.
  • Generate complete reports in seconds. The data you enter during the inspection is automatically converted into an easy-to-read, interactive, highly visual report. Corrective actions are automatically recommended, which you can quickly edit as needed.
  • Use the analytics dashboard to aggregate all of your assessments for a specific company into one report. Imagine providing one report for an enterprise contract with hundreds of facilities!

Circadian Risk’s SaaS technology is completely reforming physical risk identification.

More Is More

With paper-based risk assessments, you’ll always have one hand tied behind your back: your reports are either too dense and unusable or they’re too generic and uninformative. Either way, you’re wasting hours of your time writing reports that will never be read. Circadian Risk gives you a third option—more in-depth information and more usability. Scrap the paper and start giving your clients digital assessment reports they can really use.

See for yourself how Circadian Risk works—schedule a personalized demo today.

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