Workspace Group PLC is the leading provider of commercial business premises within central London and provides the perfect spaces for businesses looking to make their mark in the capital.

Like many other commercial property owners, Workspace has unfortunately fallen victim to crime and anti-social behaviour during out-of-hours periods.

But by investing in a robust and reliable dedicated security monitoring service through SMC, our experts have been able to support Workspace Group with a significant reduction in security threats.

Identifying the client’s needs

For Workspace Group, there were five core reasons why the business needed to invest in security monitoring:

  • To protect a large portfolio of commercial properties in London
  • To have a dedicated and reliable CCTV monitoring and remote concierge service, 24/7, with mobile keyholder response
  • To balance security with customer service through an out-of-hours concierge service to allow access for tenants and contractors
  • To provide dedicated account management
  • To manage the costs of traditional outsourced manned security solutions

We then made it our mission to meet each of these specific needs through our full-service security monitoring solutions.

Delivering long-term solutions and benefits

SMC’s monitoring operators review and record live images from monitored systems remotely and initiate an agreed response to any security incidents. Through a proactive, dedicated video wall, the operators can see real time events across the portfolio and respond accordingly. The wall consists of eight monitors viewing four Workspace sites per monitor, which actively monitor high-risk doors and entrances.

Depending upon the situation or alarm event, the monitoring operators have two options. They can either deploy a dedicated keyholding responder to any Workspace centre to investigate and report back on the reasons for the alarm activation or, they can escalate the situation further and call for additional support based upon incidents and agreed levels of response.

We also provide a remote concierge service to support out-of-hours monitoring. A CCTV system is integrated with on-site access control equipment, enabling our monitoring centre to verify legitimate tenants and contractors before permitting secured and monitored access.

Our dedicated team monitors and provides concierge services for 44 Workspace centres, including up to 120 cameras at any one time, which are moved and tailored to suit the centre’s needs and requirements.

Workspace also benefits from a dedicated SMC account manager, who delivers the following services:

  • Security analysis both on site and remotely
  • Comprehensive site recommendations
  • Electronic and manned security services
  • Customer visits
  • Collation of weekly and monthly CCTV and intruder activity reports
  • Face-to-face meetings with Workspace
  • Presentation of data in a customer friendly way, ensuring recommendations are made and appropriate actions taken

Putting our systems into practice

Recently, our team recognised a known offender who had previously committed offences across the Workspace estate of sites. The offender’s method for committing the offences was to enter the premises by tailgating a customer through the entrance doors.

As soon as the threat was identified, our team contacted the Police and dispatched the designated keyholding mobile guard to intervene. While the Police attended the premises to conduct a search, the experts at our monitoring centre located the offender by actively monitoring the CCTV system. The offender was subsequently detained by the Police as he attempted to leave the premises with a number of stolen items – saving Workspace the money and inconvenience of having to replace stolen items.

Glowing customer feedback

Following the successful implementation of our monitoring services in identifying the tailgating offender, Workspace’s Head of Security, Darren Baker, was delighted with the rapid response from our team, as well as the results achieved.

“Please pass on my thanks to the team whose actions have again resulted in the arrest of a known offender who had already committed two offences across our portfolio,” says Darren.

“By actively monitoring the high-risk doors, recognising the offender, and contacting the Police their actions resulted directly in the arrest of a prolific offender.”

For our Account Manager Jason Gardiner, our experiences with Workspace Group are the perfect demonstration of how security monitoring can make a real difference to a business and add much needed peace of mind during out-of-hours periods.

“It is an excellent result for SMC’s monitoring operators and testament to the hard work, training and development of the dedicated Workspace team. The operators recognised, observed, reacted, and handled the event in real time. This has proved to Workspace Group that we are diligent, attentive and take ownership of all incidents from start to finish and have the confidence and training to complete any alarm incidents presented to them”.

To find out more about our full range of security monitoring services, get in touch with our sales team by emailing [email protected]