By Chris Burton, executive vice president of experiences and design at Sign In Solutions
On any given day, a government contracting firm’s visitor list could range from maintenance workers, subcontractors and customers to business partners, federal officials and foreign nationals, each presenting unique risks and fresh compliance challenges for the company. It’s enough to test even the most buttoned-down security and compliance teams.
Exactly who had access to which parts of a facility, and for what reason? Which clearances were required before they gained entry and why? Whom inside the company did they visit and for how long? Were all compliance measures followed to a T? The ability to record, store, and report all this information is a critical compliance litmus test for any government contractor.
Every facility visit, every meeting, every interaction, brings its own unique compliance implications and risk — and its own opportunity to build the kind of strong compliance record that inspires trust and sets a firm apart in competing for new business. In a compliance-focused business where regulations like FedRAMP, CMMC, ITAR, SAM, FAR, DFARS, and TAA loom large, the outcome of a project or a pursuit often comes down to how effective a firm is at closing the compliance loop, from prescreening and identity checks to sign-in records and after-the-fact audit reporting.
Visitor Management as the Compliance Difference-Maker
Oftentimes, the difference-maker, all other things being equal, is the maturity of a firm’s approach to visitor management. Those that can manage compliance, security and the visitor experience within a single, integrated visitor management platform are well-positioned to ensure the right people gain access, under the right conditions, with data to document it all. On the other hand, GovCon firms that rely on siloed visitor management systems and non-standardized, heavily manual processes could see their security, compliance, visitor experience, new business pursuits and overall reputation suffer as a result.
Integrating Compliance Into the Full Visitor Lifecycle
With compliance as an integral, seamless part of a visitor management system, a government contracting firm can:
• More effectively manage risk by treating compliance as a continuous lifecycle. Compliance isn’t a single moment at the front desk, it’s a process that begins before a visitor’s arrival with prescreening and approvals, continues through check-in, access control and the visitor journey, then on to recording, managing and reporting the data associated with each visitor and visit.
Standardizing Processes Across Facilities and Locations
• Implement and enforce standardized compliance practices and processes across locations, then tailor them to the unique needs of a particular location. Via the visitor management platform, companies can apply standard visitor policies across all their facilities, with the flexibility to customize compliance policies at individual sites that pose unique risks, such as the presence of national security-sensitive intellectual property, or frequent visits by foreign nationals. These policies then intelligently and dynamically dictate the path each check-in and visitor experience takes in real time, based on the variables detected with each visitor.
Doing More With Less: Automation and Resource Efficiency
And let’s not overlook the labor factor. “Doing more with less” is a mantra we hear often these days, particularly with the federal government’s current push for austerity, and corresponding budget cuts by many GovCon firms that could impact their security resources. The presence of a centralized visitor management system with standardized compliance enables GovCon security teams to maximize their security resources by relieving them of time-consuming, error-prone manual or fragmented processes in favor of automated processes, and by giving them a single set of tools to manage security and compliance across facilities.
Staying Audit-Ready With Complete Visitor Data
• Close the loop to stay on the right side of compliance responsibilities and stay audit-ready. A visitor management system doesn’t just manage visitors, it can also provide the governance framework for audit defense and for ensuring alignment with the complex and nuanced reporting and compliance responsibilities associated with FedRAMP, CMMC, DFARS and other regulations. With ready access to complete documentation about a visitor, a visit, and why they were authorized and under which requirements (identity verification, watchlist checks, NDA sign-offs, foreign national approvals, etc.), a GovCon has a defensible chain of accountability to draw upon via a single, secure source of visitor and compliance data from across the organization. In the event of an incident investigation, they can quickly match visitor logs to clearances and policy adherence to pinpoint an issue.
Leveraging Compliance to Gain a Competitive Edge
• Stand out for all the right reasons. A strong compliance and security track record goes a long way in the government contracting world. Firms that can couple that with consistently superior visitor experiences give themselves a big edge in landing the next big contract, and in attracting top-shelf talent.
Managing Subcontractor Risk With Integrated Systems
• Maintain a firm handle on subcontractors. As a contractor, a firm could have dozens, even hundreds of subcontractors involved in a project. All of them pose some level of risk that has to be managed efficiently, with nuance, professionalism, and an emphasis on security, without hampering their productivity.
Government contractors operate in a world where every physical and online visitor is a compliance event and an opportunity to make an impression. When all these factors align within a visitor management system, compliance becomes ingrained in a government contracting firm’s culture, giving a company a real edge in vying for new business.
