One of the most satisfying sales is to a prodigal son – the return of a customer.

We all think we’re being clever by trying to find alternatives that could possibly be better. We experiment and take calculated risks in the hope to get a better result. We forget, or don’t trust, that specialists do this for a living in order to confidently say ‘this is the best’.
The question we get a lot is why use Keyed Alike (KA)? And then, why choose our Keyed Alike?

Two concepts:

Keyed different: means that you will need to tag each and every set of keys in order to keep track. Your asset control and maintenance will bear the administrative burden of this option. Also, Keyed Different locks are cheaper than Keyed Alike locks.

Keyed Alike: one key will be able to open all of the locks provided, needed and wanted. No additional saving of keys, lists of which goes where, and keeping a cupboard full of labelled keys. This option saves time, effort and unnecessary admin.

This article explores the comparison and why we say KA is better on quantity. We think that once you know these advantages you will agree.

What Happens in Life…

Over the years, as many people do, the IT/Security Manager changes to a different job at a different company and the newly recruited manager is not aware of the keyed alike locks, and specific key range. He/she starts ordering with restricted criteria. The new main focus for decision making in ordering, is price. We know that price as the ultimate criteria for decision making, is only so, if advantage is not understood. We all know that you have expensive cars, toys, computers and flights etc… and cheap ones – why? Simply, you get what you pay for. We all know this, but when we get to work and the boss tells you to get the cheapest quote, we completely ignore value criteria. We enter a mindset that tells us that the cheaper the quotation is, the better the deal.

The problem with ordering and narrowing your process by setting it to price criteria only, is that all future planning and problems are ignored. Your next order, possibly at a different supplier, will have a completely different set of keys. This is not a problem for the buyer but will create problems for admin, installation and maintenance.

So, now the new criteria for shopping for KA locks are the lowest prices. You will probably find some KA locks at various suppliers and a selection to choose from. You will place your order and spend your valuable budgeted amount of money at the cheapest supplier. And this will continue as you order locks each year according to your requirements, and restricted by your budget available to spend. I recon you get the picture at this point?

After years of doing this you discovered that you have ordered many KA locks – at KA prices –and that you now have a mixture of supplied batches of KA locks that have effectively created a Key Different environment. This begs the question: “Why did you spend KA prices to have KD locks? You have many KA ranges/batches… and at various departments. You will run around like a chicken without a head in order to figure out what is going on!A case study in point: Company X was supplied locks by SecuPlus from 2001. At a certain point they wondered off – to explore the wonders of alternatives. Eventually they discovered the actual mess they created and turned back to us.

They discovered the secret of Keyed Alike: it is not the fact of, but the future mindedness that makes the difference. We can – and do – supply keyed alike locks indefinitely. Not just any keyed alike but YOUR keyed alike.
Over time they will have to phase out all of these alternatively bought KA ranges and replace them with our Keyed Alike range to once again only have one key to open the security locks of their computers. Many years down the line, we can still supply the same key to Company X for locks bought more than a decade ago.

Next time when you order Keyed Alike locks, think twice, don’t be penny wise and pound foolish!

Author:
Mr. Casper Lourens
(Director, SecuPlus)