The umbrella term of “small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)” might evoke a sense of humility. However, the importance and impact of SMEs around the world are the opposite of small or humble: SMEs account for up to 70 percent of the jobs in most OECD countries, facilitating growth, prosperity, and innovation globally.
In the world of business, small isn’t synonymous with simple. All SMEs come with their unique set of needs and challenges, even though the resources to tackle these might be more limited.
Physical Access: A Universal SME Challenge
An issue as such that every SME with a physical presence will have to face is access. Take WindwerkAG, an indoor skydiving company in the medieval Swiss town of Winterthur, where visitors can experience the joy of weightlessness and the indescribable feeling of free-falling.
As Windwerk grew and shared its vision of joy and flying with more people, so did the challenge of access. Many individuals and groups, such as children on school trips and colleagues at corporate events, have already experienced a flight in the wind tunnel. Around 11 instructors or flight attendants make sure customers have a great flying experience. Seven other employees work behind the scenes in the back office. This means many different people enter and exit the building any given day.
Physical Keys, Less Joy
Until recently, however, building access wasn’t as efficient or as seamless as it needed to be.
Physical keys meant additional work. I always had to be onsite to open the doors for suppliers.
Tobias Oertle, CEO of Windwerk
“Windwerk is a dynamic company that strives towards flexibility and spontaneity,” says Oertle. However, old-fashioned keys that were vulnerable to getting lost, being misplaced, or copied didn’t align with the high-spirited and innovative brand. Hence, Windwerk decided to go with a cutting-edge solution that efficiently and reliably defines who can access specific doors at specific times. Since then, Oertle and his colleagues haven’t looked back: Their secure and flexible system offered a simple solution with minimal internal IT coordination.
Doors can now be secured and monitored with electronic and wireless locking components or with mechanic locking systems, which gives access to only authorized persons. For example, if someone has to enter the premises outside business hours or if temporary employees or visitors need to enter the building. The system even allows the remote opening of doors, which brings a lot of flexibility.
The Right Access Solutions to Up the Game
The access solution has made life much easier for Oertle and his colleagues at the indoor skydiving company. “Being able to grant access and permissions remotely means I can sit back and relax,” he says. Access used to be an enormous chore for the company. But smoothening this now helps Windwerk to spend more time on what they love most: Sharing the supreme joy of flying and getting hearts to race. “Could there be anything better than flying? Hardly,” states the opening sentence of the company’s website.
Like Windwerk, thousands of SMEs around the world run on sheer passion and faith, which is why they’re able to make the significant contributions they do to the world. Thus, finding the right access and security solutions is set to propel the SMEs while enabling them to polish their real passions.
