24/7 Software Blog

“When October Books, a small radical bookshop in Southampton, England, was moving to a new location down the street, it faced a problem. How could it move its entire stock to the new spot, without spending a lot of money or closing down for long?” writes Laurel Wamsley in their recent NPR article entitled “How Do You Move A Bookstore? With A Human Chain, Book By Book.”

“The shop came up with a clever solution: They put out a call for volunteers to act as a human conveyor belt,” shares Wamsley.

According to the article, “As they prepared to ‘lift and shift’ on Sunday, they expected perhaps 100 people to help.”

"But on the day, we had over 200 people turn out, which was a sight to behold,’ Amy Brown, one of the shop's five part-time staff members, told NPR,” explains Wamsley.

The NPR piece continues that “Shoulder to shoulder, community members formed a line 500 feet long: from the stockroom of the old shop, down the sidewalk, and onto the shop floor of the new store.”

“When the great book chain began, she was in the stockroom. ‘I was handing books to people without actually seeing the entire of it. So, it was only after about 20 minutes I actually go out into the road and saw the extent of the people,” Brown said later in Wamsley’s article.

We know it’s only on rare occasion that you’d be moving your operation to a new location.

Yes, it happens.

But, that’s not what grabbed our attention today.

The “book chain” process Brown shares in the last paragraph above got us thinking about the evolution of your operation.

• What do you need to put in place to run your high-performing operation for years to come?

Keep reading; we’re going to share the essential takeaways this article about a moving bookstore can offer your efforts.

Let’s do this.

You oversee all operations for your property.

Besides your family, it’s your life.

You believe you’re excellent at it too.

But, you always feel like you hit too many bottlenecks when trying to get work done.

Since you run the entire operation, from customer service to security, you have a lot of moving parts to keep your eyes on day to day.

This responsibility makes it difficult to ensure nothing slips through the cracks.

Your security team uses software for their guard tours.

Public safety uses another system – you can’t remember the name – for managing issues, incidents, and other miscellaneous requests that happen throughout the property.

Not to mention, your engineering team requires your team to write up a work order and then forward it to them.

Then, they enter the work order into their CMMS software.

We counted three different systems right there.

Each different system sends you a separate report, formatted a different way, and each has their faults that you must overcome each week to assess the information.

How is this efficient in any way?

It’s not.

You’re using too many ‘tools’ to run your property.

This strategy is dangerous because it leads to significant inefficiencies that affect your customers, bottom line, and your job.

But, the good news is you can change the course of the future.

You can control the effectiveness of your operation.

You no longer need multiple tools – you need a unified solution to achieve Proactive Operations.

“A winning Mega Millions ticket for a $1.537 billion lottery — one of the largest ever — was sold in South Carolina, according to the South Carolina Education State Lottery,” writes Emily Sullivan in their recent article entitled “A Winning Ticket In S.C. For $1.5 Billion, One Of Largest Jackpots In Lottery History.”

“The stunning lump-sum cash payout, should the lucky winner choose to take it? Nearly $878 million,” shares Sullivan.

According to the article, “The drawing was at 11 p.m. ET Tuesday, and the odds of holding the winning ticket were about 1 in 302 million.”

“The winning numbers were 28-70-5-62-65, with a Mega Ball of 5,” the NPR article notes, in case you missed the drawing.

“The California Lottery said it sold 8 tickets matching 5 of the 6 numbers. Those ticket holders will win ‘a still undetermined amount of prize money,’ it said. Also, the Texas Lottery said a $3 million winning ticket for Tuesday's drawing was sold in San Antonio,” the article highlights.

According to Sullivan, “There could be more lucky ticket holders — not all states have reported if they sold any partially winning ticket numbers.”

Do you have a lucky ticket?!

Chances are, you don’t.

But, the good news is you don’t need luck for what we’re talking about today.

It’s a sure thing.

And it’s called Proactive Operations.

The winning methodology used by the world’s greatest properties to achieve maximum performance.

“Here’s our problem,” you shout.

“We’re always picking up the pieces,” you tell Chris, your director of public safety.

“We’re never ahead of the game,” you continue.

“It’s because we’re running an outdated system that runs from software on the first computer I used in my first year here,” he responds.

“The wands don’t even work that well either.

They’re always crashing on our guards,” he explains.

“We’re always running in ‘reactive mode,'” he snarls.

You look at him with intense interest.

“What do you mean?” you ask.

“Poor documentation, time-stamping technology, no accountability, high turnover of staff, and the inability to capture critical information on the fly,” he explains.

Now, you’re frustrated with yourself because he’s approached you about upgrading your guard tour system in the past.

But, you didn’t listen.

You understand the challenges of running a legacy system.

So, today you choose to implement a proactive, web-based system at your property.  

Let’s move your operation to the type of guard tour system proactive operations use.

“Passwords that took seconds to guess, or were never changed from their factory settings. Cyber vulnerabilities that were known, but never fixed. Those are two common problems plaguing some of the Department of Defense's newest weapons systems, according to the Government Accountability Office,” writes Bill Chappell in their recent NPR article entitled “Cyber Tests Showed 'Nearly All' New Pentagon Weapons Vulnerable To Attack, GAO Says.”

“The flaws are highlighted in a new GAO report, which found the Pentagon is ‘just beginning to grapple’ with the scale of vulnerabilities in its weapons systems,” Chappell explains.

“Drawing data from cybersecurity tests conducted on Department of Defense weapons systems from 2012 to 2017, the report says that by using ‘relatively simple tools and techniques, testers were able to take control of systems and largely operate undetected’ because of basic security vulnerabilities,” the article continues.

According to the NPR piece, “The GAO says the problems were widespread: ‘DOD testers routinely found mission critical cyber vulnerabilities in nearly all weapon systems that were under development.”

Chappell explains in the article that “When weapons program officials were asked about the weaknesses, the GAO says, they ‘believed their systems were secure and discounted some test results as unrealistic."

And that’s why we’re writing today’s article.

We don’t want you to believe anything.

You’ve got to know your ‘systems’ are secure.

Agree?

That’s why it’s critical to identify your flaws now and understand potential vulnerabilities.

But, you’re probably wondering how right?

Well, if you’re “just beginning to get a grapple” of the importance of your operation’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities for improvement, and outside threats – we’ve got you covered.

Keep reading; we’re going to share why and how a proven methodology is a key to plugging holes in your operation and knowing everything is secure.

Believe us.

“It takes too long for us to respond to incidents on the other side of the property,” you mumble to yourself.

You’re struggling with your operation’s response times to incidents.

But, you don’t know how to resolve it.

You’re open to asking for help – but, you don’t know who to ask.

You know for a fact that there’s a problem but can’t seem to put your finger on a solution.

“Why are we taking so long to get from incident to issue to another incident?” you ask yourself.

This problem is exhausting.

You’re ready to walk off a cliff in frustration but aren’t going to give up so easily.

You just want a way to answer the equation for response times, right?

Everyone would see you as the proactive leader you know you are.

But, where do you even start?

This part is where we can help.

There is one solution that contains the requisites for faster response times to incidents that occur throughout your property.

The solution is an incident management system (IMS).

It’ll help you better manage your operation, so you can understand what it takes to reduce response times.

Keep reading; in today’s article, we’re going to show you how to cut your response times with purpose and results you’ll notice.