One of the biggest and potentially most alarming news stories during the recent holiday season was the security breach at a national retailer. Data from thousands of credit cards was stolen, leaving card holders vulnerable to identity theft and retailers subject to huge losses.

The holiday season from Thanksgiving through to the end of the year is a particularly active time for most industries. Retailers are geared up for shoppers, airports have all hands on deck to handle the additional holiday traffic and hotels and restaurants are overbooked with holiday parties.

The open architecture of physical security technology has made it easier and more convenient to integrate various security elements for operational ease and improved safety and security of employees, visitors, premises and material/intellectual property. With increasing frequency, key control and asset management systems are playing strategic roles in these integrated systems.

With so many purchase options available for security and surveillance equipment solutions, service and support considerations may sometimes take a back seat to price, features and product quality. However, for mission-critical applications such as key control and asset management, service and support of the equipment needs to be a top priority. Protecting the investment, along with the safety and security of people and assets, starts with good service and support.

The benefits of a key control and management solution for fleet management applications has been compellingly demonstrated. With so many physical keys in use, management needs a robust system for securing them, along with the vehicles and doors they represent. But beyond the physical security of these keys, there is a need to track and audit and control their use both in real time and in the long term. For that, the user needs specialized software, which is often resident in key control solutions.