What is an Alarm Receiving Centre and How Does it Benefit my Business?

If you’re worried about the security of your business – and why wouldn’t you be? – you need to take all the precautions you can to protect it from those who might do it harm.

When it comes to protecting your physical premises, and all that they contain, one key tool in the range of solutions available is an effective intruder alarm. Most often operational when your premises are otherwise unoccupied, such as at night and over the weekend, they are designed to detect any unauthorised intruders and raise an alarm. 

Just the sound of that alarm will, so the theory goes, be enough to scare off the intruder and/or encourage any passersby to alert the authorities to a potential crime. But what if your premises are on a business or industrial park, it’s night and there’s no one around to hear it? Or what if whoever does hear it – as is so often the case – just assumes that someone else is dealing with it and carries on their way?

And even if the police are informed by a concerned citizen, they will rarely have the time or available personnel to do anything anyway – they’ll be all too aware that too many of these alarms are false.  

This is where an alarm receiving centre (ARC) can be a great help.

What is an alarm receiving centre?

An ARC is a monitoring station that has people on site 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Connected to the security systems of multiple clients, and therefore monitoring the security of many sites at a time, they are able to deal with any incidents that occur in real time. 

If an intruder alarm is activated, they are able to respond immediately, first verifying that it’s a genuine incident, and then alerting local police or other security services if required.

An ARC isn’t just about intruders, though, because they can also monitor fire alarms, meaning that they offer all-round peace of mind that your premises are in safe hands.

What are the benefits of using an ARC?

Permanent security

Because ARCs are permanently staffed, every hour of the day, every day of the year, they can guarantee that your premises benefit from constant protection. The only way you could do that yourself is by employing the required number of people to work all those hours, including holiday and sick cover.

Guaranteed response

As previously mentioned, the police are generally unable to respond quickly to random calls from members of the public. That’s because they don’t usually have officers available to deal with incidents that will often turn out to be false alarms. Because an ARC is able to verify that the incident in question is genuine, police will investigate when alerted by an ARC.

Cost savings

If you want to enjoy 24-hour protection for your premises, it used to be that your only option would be to employ your own security personnel. Using an ARC means you don’t have to pay those people. You may be paying for the staff at the ARC, but as those salaries will be shared among many other companies, possibly right across the country, it should be considerably cheaper for you.

Eliminates false alarms 

The prevalence of false alarms doesn’t just mean that genuine incidents can often go unreported or uninvestigated. If you’re a keyholder tasked with dealing with an alarm – even if that only involves turning it off to stop the noise from keeping neighbours awake – it also means you won’t get dragged out of bed every time your alarm is triggered. An ARC can identify a false alarm and turn it off, meaning the police won’t get called out unnecessarily and you can get a full night’s sleep. 

24/7 ARC monitoring from Scutum London

By now, you should be able to see how using the services of an ARC can benefit your business as a cost-effective means of providing your premises with genuine 24-hour protection.

Scutum London is a leading provider of security and fire safety services for businesses in and around London, Surrey and the rest of the South East. We can design and install bespoke security systems using the best in modern technology that will provide effective protection for your premises, backed up by our very own state-of-the-art alarm receiving system.

If you want to discover more about how we can give you peace of mind regarding the safety and security of your business premises, contact our friendly team today.