Like most 21st century industries, the commercial property sector has gradually come to embrace the notion of outsourced solutions. For many first generation commercial building owners, whose "go-it-alone" philosophy was rooted in the mid-20th century when their empires were still young, security was viewed as a highly-sensitive and in-house function.
No longer. A growing number of these owners (if not most of the newer generation) now understand the advantages of outsourcing services like property management and leasing to expert firms. It should come as no shock, therefore, that building security/access control also has become one of the fastest-growing segments of the outsourced services industry.
That's where we come into the picture. As CEO of Datawatch Systems, one of the nation's preeminent high-tech access control and building security solutions providers, I am deeply familiar with this uptick in demand for third party security providers. Since 1981, Datawatch Systems has been successfully developing and implementing a wide range of personalized solutions for our clients' unique access control challenges. We refer to this as our 21st century advantage.
Indeed, our technical and functional expertise is unrivaled throughout the industry, and the rapid growth of our business in recent years is a testament to our prowess. Beyond the high-tech nature of our work, what we basically offer our clients is the ability to focus on their core business - which is not access controls or building security-by empowering us to take over these responsibilities in the most cost-effective and comprehensive manner possible.
Datawatch Systems isn't just equipping our clients to defend against intruders or thieves, either: Our business is totally focused on minimizing the risk of all worst-case scenarios no matter what. As many of us learned last fall during and after Superstorm Sandy, Mother Nature can wreak havoc on our workplaces and homes. As a result, thousands of businesses and homeowners found their properties flooded and without power after the storm. The storm not only underscored the need for redundant power sources such as generators, but served as a stark reminder that having a generator just isn't enough - ensuring that your generator is maintained and ready to function in the event of a power failure is critically important.
Yet scores of commercial building owners found their properties without power for days if not weeks despite having a generator in place. Our teams of experts routinely run tests on backup power systems throughout the year, especially in advance of hurricane season in the northeast. Our mantra is "protect the assets and the tenants." How we accomplish this depends on many variables, and we have developed a suite of service lines aimed at tackling every single one.
Our Remote Concierge system is a menu of services that remotely monitors natural disasters—before and during impact—enabling greater communication and dissemination of information, including the ability to manage building access from afar. We refer to this ability as "remote monitoring," which is a safer security method that's also significantly less expensive than posting guards on site. Having the ability to remotely lock and unlock building doors, process visitors into a property during lock-down conditions and/or monitor flood conditions through our mechanical supervisory alarms, is a tremendous 21st century advantage.
Along the same lines, our Hurricane Watch suite of services was developed first for the Florida region in 2005. Hurricane Watch is a web-based system/emergency call service that enables facilities managers/owners to communicate with staff regarding the status of a building, progress of the hurricane, damage reports and building closure notifications. A two-way website, employees can log on to ascertain building status and get updates, as well as post their own status/location, indicating if they are safe and able to come to work. All of this real time information is viewable online and manned by Datawatch Systems' call center personnel 24/7.
Not only do our systems help eliminate the need for security guards and related costs, they also ensure our clients' safety. In addition, our innovative engineers are continuing to design and develop newer, more advanced remote applications for an even broader range of building operations.

William Peel III is the CEO of Datawatch Systems, Bethesda, MD. Tags: