Stay On Top of Your Business Performance Management With Tried and Tested Tools and a ‘Savi’ Approach
Business performance management is complex if you lack the needed tools and systems. Savi Solutions helps improve your bottom line with enhanced VSaaS systems.
It is often said that a company that isn’t growing is dying. Franchise owners and franchisees need to develop strategies to stay competitive continuously. However, the daily operations of stores and outlets—and the related administrative tasks—likely require their complete attention. This is especially true in respect of compliance and human resources issues. And it’s where a sound business performance management system can make all the difference.
Common Business Performance Management Mistakes
First, let’s look at the more common mistakes that businesses make. After that, we’ll examine tried and tested tools for optimizing business performance management processes.
Failing to set goals can end in disaster. Everybody—from the lowest-ranking employee to the franchise owner—has a list of responsibilities that further business objectives. Managers, in particular, need to ensure that everyone on the team knows what’s expected of them. Moreover, each team member must understand and accept their SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-based) goals.
Don’t take training and development for granted, especially in the case of supervisors who are tasked with employee performance management. After all, they are the ones on the ground, dealing with staff daily. It’s beyond essential for them to be well-versed in the review process.
Without the necessary business performance management guidelines, staff will lack direction. Further, with proper processes to follow, there’s also likely to be a lack of accountability in managing employees’ performance evaluation, goal setting, and feedback.
A common thread runs through all three of these examples. Foremost is the lack of a better system to ensure accountability. Undoubtedly, franchise management needs to take a more proactive role—but who has the time? Especially when dealing with a large chain of franchises with branches across several states.
How Can You Integrate Software and Ensure Accountability?
Take the case of R&R BBQ, a successful barbecue chain with branches in Utah and Idaho. Having multiple locations meant dealing with different security systems. As a result, R&R national headquarters had to scramble every time they opened a new branch, coordinating with numerous vendors and setting up multiple software systems and logins.
Thankfully, the company connected with a vendor that provided an easy-to-use platform for streamlining and integrating security services. Instead of wasting time and resources with different systems, R&R BBQ worked with a single vendor who provided a one-stop shop for surveillance, alarm, keyless entry, loss prevention audits, and operational analytics across branches and states.
At a franchisor level, how can you ensure that each branch gets equal representation and access to central office resources? Given the unique location of each store, how do you integrate their local infrastructure with your existing systems? The solution is a vendor partner that can bridge the gaps. In particular, one that can connect even the remotest branches with your business performance management system. Let's look at some tried and tested tools for optimizing business performance management processes.
1. Analyze Performance Metrics Using VSaaS
VSaaS (video surveillance as a service) can help resolve report inaccuracies by supplying documentary evidence of a sequence of events. For instance, questions regarding the time or quantity of deliverables or even the presence or absence of work staff during an incident. Instead of picking sides between two or more eyewitness accounts, VSaaS provides the “smoking gun” and prevents lengthy debates or counterarguments in a disputed event.
However, VSaaS isn’t only for resolving disputes or corroborating events. A more practical application of video surveillance is to track specific tasks and set them against established benchmarks. This helps efficiency experts get to the root of any operations weaknesses and suggest ways to improve the system. Here, VSaaS still provides the smoking gun in a less dramatic fashion!
Unlike local surveillance systems, VSaaS systems are cloud-based. Managing cameras and reviewing footage can be undertaken remotely at franchise headquarters. Further, because local staff can’t gain access to the videos, their integrity is preserved.
2. Efficient Reviews With Event-Driven Video Analytics
The problem with video surveillance systems doesn’t lie in gathering footage. The bigger issue is getting somebody to go over these mountains of footage to find a critical event or establish a pattern—the bigger the area, the more security cameras, which makes the challenge much greater. Accenture estimated that less than 1% of all data gathered from security cameras was analyzed. The remaining 99% continues to lie idle as “dark data.”
Modern video surveillance systems use AI and machine learning to establish patterns and detect anomalies in video footage. Further, the software can trigger alerts within the surveillance system whenever motion detectors pick up movement that falls outside the established pattern.
With a modern video surveillance system, humans aren’t needed to constantly monitor cameras and stay on the lookout for anything outside the ordinary. Instead, AI-powered software conducts the monitoring, leading to more efficient results. The automatic monitoring software only calls for human intervention once it detects an “alert” incident. For business performance management practitioners, event-driven video analytics can boost monitoring efficiency tremendously.
The system is yet to be perfected, as developers are still focused on accounting for everything that could trigger false alarms. Thankfully, machine learning means that as more video footage is analyzed, the program gets better at detecting alert-worthy events selectively.
Business Performance Management Applications
Video analytics opens the way for improved training in specific jobs. Trainees will start learning by viewing videos of employees completing their tasks correctly. Then, these same trainees will have to perform the identical task and follow the procedures demonstrated. After that, the monitoring software will analyze the trainees’ performances and compare their efforts to the benchmark. In addition, these video sessions may serve as the basis for a new rewards system for employees in jobs that require strict adherence to procedures—for example, customer support, emergency responders, and repair and maintenance crews.
3. Better Compliance Management Using Remote Surveillance
Video surveillance can also help companies fulfill compliance management procedures more effectively. In addition to checking company policy, the software can monitor for any apparent industry non-compliance handed down by government regulators such as OSHA, EPA, and other local government agencies. If there’s the barest hint that monitoring systems are disabled, unavailable, or malfunctioning, some might be tempted to commit infractions. These acts could be as minor as leaving the work area or perhaps bringing in a forbidden item (such as a mobile phone). In more serious cases, workers might be caught consuming or taking home items produced on the factory floor.
Traditional security cameras are only as good as the staff monitoring them. Incidents are bound to be missed, especially during long shifts. Further, the security team’s relationships with employees could compromise the integrity of the monitoring system. By contrast, using AI-powered surveillance cameras, you’re unlikely to miss anything. Through AI and machine learning, the software understands which actions warrant activating a warning or an alert.
AI-Powered Monitoring Software Benefits Industries
Meanwhile, other industries can also benefit from AI-powered monitoring software. Retail workers and staff in convenience stores could be prompted to attend to customers who have been in the store awhile without any employee approaching them. The software also helps detect whether customers or employees are surreptitiously taking out unpaid items.
In the case of healthcare facilities, monitoring software can alert medical personnel regarding any lapses in procedure when attending to a patient. Moreover, the system can automatically alert doctors or security if a patient starts making frequent movements, even if monitors are not triggering any alarms.
Improve your Business Performance Management with VSaaS
Video surveillance as a service is fast gaining popularity for its ability to deliver better and more targeted results. It may be time to upgrade your company’s video surveillance systems if you want to improve overall performance over multiple locations. The subscription model and integration with your present system also mean that VSaaS offers all these improvements at a lower subscription cost.
Savi is your leading solution for gaining business analytics while ensuring loss prevention. For instance, fully maximize previous security investments by integrating all existing devices into Savi’s infrastructure. This means clients won’t need additional investments to upgrade their systems. Further, you can start working together almost immediately. Savi has all the technology, tools, and know-how that you need.
Learn more about how Savi’s solutions can help improve your business performance management. Contact us so we can chat about your existing systems, make plans to improve them, and offer you a free demonstration—at your convenience.