At a time when uncertainty feels like the new normal — large structural variables are out of our control, pandemic-driven disruptions have upset assumptions and made so many formerly reliable constants obsolete — business leaders are hungry for information they can count on. Solid, reliable data is a valuable currency, today more than ever. Which is why Pinkerton’s extraordinary Crime Index tool is a critical piece of the total risk perspective—and why business owners and operators are counting on the unique data and insights the Crime Index provides to make smarter and more strategic business decisions.
Understanding what the Crime Index is, how it works, and how it impacts business decision-making is essential knowledge for executives and business leaders everywhere.
Knowledge Based Design
The Pinkerton Crime Index uses advanced data science, coupled with more than 170 years of crime prevention experience, which is fused with a multi-disciplined approach to provide key insights into patterns of crime and violence all over the United States. More importantly, it delivers timely crime data with granular detail, along with seasonal insights and other essential trend analysis two years ahead of other crime reports. The level of detail and the ability to use data, unmatched experience and expertise, and innovative algorithms as part of a proprietary system means that Pinkerton can forecast crime trends with 95% confidence. It’s the kind of timely, reliable, and meaningful information that allows business leaders to make decisions with confidence.
The Pinkerton Crime Index provides customizable solutions that are relevant to individual businesses and provides data with an extraordinary degree of specificity—down the neighborhood level—combining both macro and micro-level analysis. Insightful analytics put scores into context, such as relevant peer group and past trends, making it easier to generate actionable solutions, and regular updates reveal how seasonality and structural impacts (such as COVID-19) are reflected in changing crime patterns and types.
Why it matters
So why does that matter? And how can business leaders utilize this data to make better business decisions?
The short answer is that the data and insights provided through the Pinkerton Crime Index enable executives to be proactive about their decision-making: to move faster and more strategically than their competitors. This is proprietary information that simply isn’t available anywhere else.
And that information is enormously relevant. The contours of the crime landscape in your area or an area where you are considering business expansion or consolidation have a profound impact on businesses and bottom lines. Crime risk is closely correlated with property values, school enrollment, and a wide range of municipal outcomes. The Pinkerton Crime Index can help businesses determine security needs and intelligently allocate resources, perform comprehensive site risk assessments, standardize smart risk and security protocols, inform proactive investment decisions, and fulfill all compliance obligations—from regulatory and insurance requirements, to duty of care responsibilities.
On the flip side, not having access to this information can lead to poorer health and safety outcomes, weaker bottom lines, and potentially damaging compliance implications that could lead to fines, legal liabilities, and reputational damage.
Crime and COVID
In the age of COVID, with so much changing so quickly, timeliness is everything, and a tool like the Pinkerton Crime Index, which captures and conveys emerging trends as they are happening is arguably more important than ever.
The Crime Index’s ability to capture the COVID impact, reveals how a generalized drop in guardianship and worsening economic conditions (layoffs, job losses, a fraying social safety net) have impacted crime rates. It shows which targets have become more vulnerable, and which categories of crimes and perpetrators need to be considered more of a threat in a pandemic.
With talent at a premium, the ability to keep your team safe has a direct connection to hiring and recruiting efforts. And with more people working from home, the geographic footprint of many businesses has functionally changed—in a dramatic way. Understanding and adapting to this new complexity and being able to identify and address weak spots and vulnerabilities can help with privacy concerns and information security and can inform decisions about who can and who should work from home.
Instability and big change also create opportunity, and the Pinkerton Crime Index provides decision-makers with critical information that can help them position their company to take advantage of those opportunities.
The bottom line
Advanced technology and AI/machine learning have been put to use in so many ways to make businesses more efficient. But data doesn’t just apply to supply chains and processes, but also how and where we live, work and conduct business. Integrating big data to facilitate smarter, savvier and more strategic decision-making is the next logical step in a remarkable and transformative tech and security revolution. In today’s fast-changing world, you simply can’t rely on your gut, your intuition, or even your past experiences to make good business decisions. You need help—and you need the right tools.
Big data tools and tech have given businesses access to what has been described as a “firehose of data.” The Pinkerton Crime Index allows decision makers to drink directly from that firehose—and to use that powerful flow of information to make crisp and calculated decisions that will give them a meaningful edge in a competitive marketplace.
