Opening a new business location involves far more than choosing a property, arranging furniture, and installing IT infrastructure. Decisions about who can enter the building, which areas employees can access, how visitors are handled, and what happens when credentials are lost should be made before the doors open. When physical security is planned late, businesses often end up adapting systems to a building instead of designing security around how the location will actually operate.
The security case remains significant even as overall property crime declines. FBI data estimates that 373,766 burglaries occurred at nonresidential locations such as stores and offices in the United States in 2024. At the same time, access technology is changing quickly. A 2025 survey of almost 500 security, access, IT, and facilities professionals found that 42% of end users deploy wireless locks, while 17% of organizations now operate fully mobile access environments, up from just 5% in 2023.
Traditional keys and isolated door systems may work for very small premises, but they become harder to manage as employee numbers, restricted areas, contractors, and locations increase. Choosing the right provider therefore requires looking beyond the reader mounted beside the door.
The goal should be to select a system that fits the building today while remaining practical as staffing, operating hours, security requirements, and technology change.
Start With the Building and Its Actual Security Risks
The first step should happen before comparing vendors. Businesses need to understand how people will move through the new location. A street-facing retail store, medical office, warehouse, coworking facility, and corporate headquarters may all have a front entrance, but their access risks are very different.
Map every entrance, emergency exit, loading area, employee-only doorway, server room, stockroom, equipment area, and other restricted space. Then identify who requires access to each area and at what times. A warehouse employee working a morning shift, for example, may need access to the main entrance, changing area, and warehouse floor, but not finance offices or network equipment rooms.
This is where electronic access control becomes more useful than distributing identical physical keys. Permissions can be linked to roles, schedules, locations, and responsibilities rather than simply possession of a key.
The risk assessment should also consider after-hours access. FBI figures show that nonresidential properties remained the location of hundreds of thousands of burglaries in 2024, even though the estimated total declined from 452,896 in 2020 to 373,766 in 2024. A business planning a new facility should therefore think about both normal employee movement and what happens when someone attempts to enter at an unusual time.
Decide How Employees, Contractors, and Visitors Will Enter
A modern access system can support several credential types, including cards, fobs, smartphones, PINs, and biometrics. The correct choice depends less on what appears most advanced and more on how the business operates.
A company with a stable workforce may be comfortable using employee badges. A coworking facility or flexible office with frequent membership changes may benefit more from credentials that can be issued and revoked remotely. Construction contractors, cleaners, delivery personnel, and temporary workers may require credentials that function only during specific hours.
Mobile access is becoming particularly important. The 2025 Wireless Access Control Report found that fully mobile environments represented 17% of surveyed organizations, compared with 5% in 2023. It also found that only 19% of respondents considered mobile unsuitable, down from 31% two years earlier.
That does not mean every new location should eliminate cards. Businesses should consider employee demographics, device policies, accessibility, battery failure, reception procedures, and backup methods before deciding.
The better question for a potential provider is therefore not, “Do you support mobile credentials?” It is, “Can we support different credential types and access rules without making administration unnecessarily complicated?”
Look Beyond the Door Reader to the Wider Security Platform
Access control rarely operates independently in a modern building. An employee credential may unlock a door, but security teams may also need to know whether that entry matches what happened on nearby cameras, whether a visitor was expected, or whether an unusual access attempt requires investigation.
Integration becomes especially valuable when businesses are opening multiple locations. Separate systems for doors, cameras, visitors, and emergency procedures can create multiple dashboards, user databases, contracts, and administrative processes. A connected approach can give teams a clearer view of events across the property.
When evaluating an access control company, businesses should therefore consider both current infrastructure and the systems they may want to connect later. Coram, for example, offers a unified physical security platform that combines access control with video surveillance and emergency management. According to its access control company comparison page, the platform works with more than 1,000 IP camera models through ONVIF compatibility, supports existing Wiegand and OSDP readers, and manages door permissions through the same cloud dashboard used for other security functions.
The wider lesson is not that every organization needs every security function from day one. It is that interoperability should be considered before installation. A system that works well for four doors today but cannot integrate with future cameras, visitor processes, identity platforms, or additional sites can create expensive limitations later.
Evaluate Scalability, Administration, and Total Ownership Cost
Purchase price is only one part of an access control decision. Businesses should examine what the system will require during its entire operational life.
Installation can involve controllers, readers, locks, cabling, network equipment, software licensing, credential costs, and labor. After launch, there may also be subscription fees, support charges, replacement credentials, software updates, maintenance, and costs associated with expanding the system.
This is one reason wireless and cloud-managed access are receiving more attention. In the 2025 industry survey, 42% of end users reported deploying wireless locks, compared with 39% in 2023, and wireless or partly wireless deployments had overtaken wired-only systems among organizations using digital access. Respondents cited factors including easier retrofitting, reduced wiring, and integration readiness.
For a business occupying a newly constructed building, wired infrastructure may still make sense because cabling can be planned during construction. A company moving into an existing office, however, may place greater value on reducing disruptive installation work.
Administration matters just as much. Ask how long it takes to add a new employee, remove a terminated employee, change access schedules, issue temporary credentials, review an event, or add another location. A system that requires specialist intervention for routine changes can create an operational burden long after installation is complete.
Check Security, Reliability, Privacy, and Compliance
Electronic access systems themselves become part of a company’s technology infrastructure. That means the selection process should include both physical security and cybersecurity questions.
Businesses should understand how credentials are protected, where access records are stored, how administrators authenticate, how permissions are divided between users, and how system updates are delivered. They should also know what happens during an internet outage or power failure.
Access logs deserve particular attention. They can provide valuable records showing when credentials were used and which controlled areas were accessed. NIST-aligned physical access guidance includes maintaining physical access audit logs and controlling access to restricted areas, illustrating why records are an important part of structured physical security programs.
Privacy requirements also vary significantly by technology. A simple card credential raises different questions from facial recognition or other biometric authentication. This matters because biometric technology is increasingly considered viable. The 2025 Wireless Access Control Report found that 91% of respondents viewed biometrics as a useful access or authentication technology.
Useful does not automatically mean appropriate. Organizations considering biometrics should assess applicable laws, consent requirements, data retention, access to stored information, and whether the security benefit justifies collecting more sensitive information.
Test the Provider Against Real Operating Scenarios
Feature lists can make competing systems look remarkably similar. Testing realistic scenarios is often more useful than comparing marketing materials.
Consider what happens when an employee loses a credential at 8 p.m. Can an administrator revoke it remotely? If a contractor needs access to one room for three days, can those permissions expire automatically? If a door is unexpectedly opened outside normal hours, can staff quickly investigate what happened? If the company opens another branch next year, can the same administrators manage it without building a separate system?
A retail business might need managers to enter before opening hours while preventing general staff access until their shifts begin. A healthcare office may require tighter restrictions around records, medication, or IT equipment. A warehouse may need different controls for offices, loading docks, inventory areas, and contractors.
Businesses should also ask vendors to demonstrate everyday administrative tasks rather than only their most impressive features. The people managing the system after installation may be facilities personnel, office managers, IT staff, or regional operations teams rather than dedicated security engineers.
Support should be tested in the same way. Clarify installation responsibilities, support hours, response expectations, replacement procedures, software update policies, and whether expansion requires the original installer.
A system is successful when routine administration becomes simpler, not when ordinary changes repeatedly require technical assistance.
Plan for the Next Location, Not Just the First One
A new office or store may initially have only a handful of controlled entrances, but businesses should consider where they expect to be several years later.
Growth may involve additional doors, more employees, satellite offices, warehouses, restricted departments, visitors, or different operating schedules. Access policies that are easy to understand with 20 employees can become difficult to manage across several hundred users and multiple properties.
Cloud-managed platforms can make centralized administration practical because permissions and activity can be managed across locations without maintaining a server at every site. Industry research also indicates continued momentum toward Access Control as a Service, with organizations citing reliability, cost efficiency, and reduced IT requirements among its attractions.
However, businesses should not assume cloud automatically makes a platform scalable. They should ask how pricing changes when doors, users, or locations increase, whether administrators can be limited to particular regions or buildings, and how policies can be standardized while still allowing local flexibility.
Planning for scalability during the first installation can prevent an organization from having to replace a system simply because the business succeeded in growing.
FAQs
What should a business look for when choosing an access control provider?
Start with the organization’s actual security risks, number of entrances, employee structure, visitor activity, operating hours, and growth plans. Then compare providers based on credential options, administration, hardware compatibility, integrations, reliability, cybersecurity, support, and long-term cost.
Should access control be planned before moving into a new location?
Yes. Early planning allows door hardware, electrical requirements, network connections, cabling, reception layouts, restricted areas, and emergency exits to be considered during the overall building design. Adding these requirements after construction or a major fit-out can create unnecessary installation work.
Are mobile credentials better than access cards?
Neither option is universally better. Mobile credentials can simplify remote issuance and reduce dependence on physical cards, while cards may remain preferable for employees without suitable devices or organizations with specific operational requirements. Many businesses choose systems capable of supporting both.
Can an access control system work with existing security equipment?
Compatibility depends on the provider and hardware involved. Businesses moving into an existing property should inventory installed readers, controllers, locks, cameras, and network infrastructure before selecting a platform, then require vendors to confirm compatibility rather than assuming existing equipment can be reused.
How early should a company evaluate access control for a new location?
Ideally, evaluation should begin during site planning or early fit-out discussions. Security requirements can affect door selection, wiring, network design, reception areas, restricted zones, and construction schedules, so involving security and IT teams early can prevent costly redesigns.
Conclusion
Choosing access control for a new business location is ultimately a planning decision, not simply a hardware purchase. The system needs to reflect how employees, visitors, contractors, and managers actually use the building while providing clear control over sensitive areas and unusual access events.
Businesses should prioritize compatibility, manageable administration, security, privacy, integration, and scalability rather than selecting a platform based on the longest feature list. When access control is considered alongside the building’s wider technology and operational plans from the beginning, it can support both safer premises and more efficient day-to-day management as the organization grows.
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