Business Development | Risk

How to Use Circadian Risk to Inventory Your Most Important Assets

November 19, 2020 | 3 min read
Inventory

When companies think about inventory, they are often thinking about stock, or their own products. But inventory is a broader term than that — it can cover all the assets and countermeasures a company owns. Everything from tangible goods, to important people, to information, can be included in an organization’s inventory, as well as items to protect those assets such as cameras, access control, and even duress alarms.

We have found thatnot every organization knows exactly what they have. They may have records that show how many fire extinguishers they have, for example, but they might not know where each one is, its condition, and when it needs to be replaced. They might know what their most valuable assets are, but may not know where they’re all located — or how much they’re collectively worth.

Using our visual assessment tool, companies can easily use Circadian Risk to keep track of their inventory by plotting each asset out on a map or floor plan, and attaching important information — like its value — as meta information.

How can you best use this feature to keep track of your company’s assets or countermeasures? Below are some best practices.

How is inventory related to your organization’s risk? Learn more.

  1. Understand what your company has and how to record each item

There are two kinds of items you can inventory using Circadian Risk’s platform:


  1. Assets: the items your company wants to protect.
  2. Countermeasures: the items that help your company protect its assets.


There are special considerations when logging each in inventory.

When recording assets it’s important to understand what their value is, and how bad it would be if a risk destroyed, damaged or compromised.

When recording countermeasures, it can be important to keep track of each item’s lifecycle, serial numbers, or even recording the age or the date each piece was purchased. By keeping track of the age and condition of each countermeasure, you can plan to replace and maintain each — information that can be helpful when preparing a budget.

2. Don’t try to inventory everything at once

It can be overwhelming to catalogue and record every asset or countermeasure a company has. Remember: you’re not inventorying stock, and not every item has to be entered into the system at the same time.

Instead, focus on your key risk scenarios. As you perform risk assessments for each risk, log the inventory pertaining to that specific scenario. For each assessment, ask yourself:

  • What assets are you trying to protect from this threat?
  • What countermeasures will protect them?


As you move through your assessments, from the highest risk scenarios to the lowest, you’ll find that your inventory is growing and changing.

Visual Risk Assessments Are Changing the Security Industry: Find out how

3. Inventory can include more than objects

Things are not the only asset your company is trying to protect. Most organizations have many different kinds of assets: customer data, proprietary information, important policies and procedures, and even people.

All of these assets can be included in your inventory. You may not be able to record their location the way you can for a physical asset, but you can log the CEO’s office, or add a muster point after an evacuation. You can also add any important information about assets.

4. Use your inventory to inform your budget

Equipment — like computers, servers, and even countermeasures— depreciates. By keeping track of the age of your equipment, both assets and countermeasures, your inventory can be a source of truth when it comes time to prepare the annual budget or apply for insurance. By knowing what you have, you can better understand its current value.

5. Remember that your inventory is a living document

A visual assessment is a basic inventory of your countermeasures. You’re already recording that you have countermeasures, and showing their locations on a map. When you use the inventory feature, you can update each item, adding its make, model and serial number, its age and if a camera, for example, is working.

By using the inventory feature for each assessment, you’ll be able to watch your inventory grow and change over time.



Need to manage your inventory? Contact us for a demo.

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