Ed Finkel

An inexplicable rise in organized retail crime during the past couple of years, perhaps due to police passivity, has major retailers looking to upgrade their equipment, technology, policies and procedures, and training for employees to combat loss prevention.

Agencies and authorities that provide water, wastewater and dam services don’t face the same regulatory hurdles as power utilities, but they’re also often smaller and have fewer resources, housed as they generally are within municipal governments or other smaller entities.

Along with the holy grail of tighter overall security, the benefits of electronic access control systems include a better handle on who’s coming and going, the ability to restrict access to certain times and places depending on a person’s function in the organization, the ability to remotely control access, the extra assurance a company or organization can give its customers, and the lack of need for rekeying doors or replacing lost keys.

Consolidation, technology, training and partnerships are among the watchwords for security officer firms and their clients as the calendar turns toward 2017.

Concerns about cybersecurity are overtaking those about physical security in the banking sector, although perhaps most front-burner have been issues that cross over into both realms.

College campuses historically have been shy about emphasizing their security policies and procedures, not wanting anxious parents or prospective students to think that a visible security force, camera equipment or other evidence of being watchful means their students are particularly vulnerable.

Enterprise security executives at utilities are geared up for everything from terrorism to copper theft.

When it comes to cybersecurity, school districts don’t present the content-rich targets that major corporations or government agencies might, but they also don’t have the same resources to protect themselves, says Jim Flanagan, chief learning service officer at the International Society for Technology in Education.