Access control plans have long centered around employees. Credentials are issued, and policies are established to grant appropriate movement based on roles, responsibilities, and the need-to-know.

The challenge many security teams face today is that some of their riskiest threats originate from outside. Vendors, contractors, service providers, and temporary workers make up a growing number of people moving through facilities each day. But they also bring an inherent degree of risk and unknown that traditional access strategies struggle to accommodate.

Organizations are starting to question whether it might be more effective to shift their approach, working to secure their environments from the outside in. If they can better control who crosses the perimeter, security plans become simpler and more predictable throughout.

An Expanding Access Risk

Unlike employees, contractors or vendors may come on site infrequently, work odd hours, or have varying access each day. Credentials may be shared, reused or distributed in an ad hoc way, with incomplete or inaccurate information about where an individual should and shouldn’t go.

A vendor might have an access policy, but gaps still could appear. Employees might hold doors open to be polite or speed things up, and guards often use their own judgment in busy areas. These systems sometimes assume that having a credential means someone is authorized, no matter what.

Over time, these habits create a gap between the official access policy and what really happens day to day.

The Limits of Traditional Access Control

Existing access control strategies can feel stretched as non-employee movement grows. But when they operate on their own, they make assumptions about who’s coming through the doors and what they’re doing once they get there.

Tailgating and piggybacking are classic examples. The principle extends to any scenario where the perimeter isn’t tightly controlled or consistently enforced. After someone has crossed the perimeter, most security plans provide very little visibility into movements until a problem is detected.

Broadening the focus to look at entry from the outside in makes it possible to close some of the most common gaps.

Securing the Perimeter: A Layered Approach

A perimeter could be a college gate, a building’s main entrance, or an internal, restricted space, even further away from the outside world. In any form, it’s where organizations can verify who a person is, why they’re there, and whether they should be allowed in.

Instead of concentrating all their security efforts downstream, organizations are moving some of their focus upstream, back to the point of entry. By putting in controls there, they have fewer assumptions to make and less manual enforcement to contend with. This isn’t so much a replacement of interior controls as a way to strengthen them by closing holes higher up the access chain.

Tackling Physical Entry Behavior

Even the most carefully written access policies can be undone by what happens at the door. Day-to-day behavior at entry points is often where risk quietly slips in.

In busy facilities, it’s common to see doors held open, people following closely behind one another, or small shortcuts to keep things moving. These moments usually aren’t driven by bad intentions. Instead, they come from helpful human instincts of wanting to save time or avoid slowing someone down.

Good intentions don’t mitigate the impact, however. When perimeter controls are bypassed, it becomes much harder to know who’s inside the facility, why they’re there, or whether they should be there at all. Accountability is lost, and meaningful audit trails are erased.

By addressing physical entry behavior directly, organizations can limit these risks without placing extra pressure on employees or creating an environment that feels restrictive or distrustful.

Why Perimeter Control Matters

Perimeter control is most effective when used as part of a broader, multi-layered security approach that leverages a balanced mix of technology, people, and processes. Adding physical access controls at the front door provides another, visible, tangible means to ensure that physical access is intentional and authorized.

Done well, this can increase visibility into who’s coming into facilities and when, reduce reliance on ongoing guard intervention, and help organizations meet compliance and audit requirements. Physical access controls can also help keep traffic moving without friction or bottlenecks. They can also support a welcoming environment, rather than creating a fortress mentality.

Physical access solutions can support user experience while quietly, efficiently, and automatically enforcing policy in the background.

Creating Security Systems That Work

Technology is only part of the solution, since lasting change requires an alignment of tools, processes, and people.

This includes defining and standardizing the process for requesting, approving, monitoring, and revoking vendor access. It’s also ensuring employees understand and support secure entry points, which is selecting technology that enables existing workflows, not more complex ones.

These components need to work together to give organizations a more robust sense of accountability, without slowing down their daily activities.

Expanding, Not Replacing, the Security Program

Many organizations focus on perimeter and entry-point controls to address persistent security gaps. As a result, they lessen the need for manual checks, improve visibility, and keep pace with new and changing threats.

The goal is not to make access more difficult for all, but to ensure the right people have access at the right time and for the right reasons.

As access needs keep changing, organizations that take an outside-in approach will be better able to adapt and do so confidently.