S E C U R I T Y P R O V I D E R S ’ V I E W S Cont’d
David Ward Managing Director Ward Security
The security industry must drive up pay to safeguard quality.
One of the challenges
every business faces is recruiting and retaining good people. We do that successfully by remunerating well and regularly rewarding outstanding work within our team. What saddens me about the security industry is that often highly skilled and experienced security professionals are not fairly paid. Given the value of the assets our security officers protect is massive, it is disproportionate to find that some don’t even get paid the London Living Wage as a minimum. To safeguard the future of our industry we must be responsible and sympathetic to our employees’ needs and drive the practice of low pay out, to ensure we don’t lose good people and discourage others from entering the security business.
John Briggs Operations Director First Security
From April 2014, the SIA will begin to implement new business licensing requirements, which will
be mandatory from 2015 for any business providing security services.
This will have a significant impact on non-ACS businesses, and some companies who did not expect to be subject to the new licensing requirements will now have
\to comply. However, this should be a fairly straightforward process for current ACS businesses.
On a commercial front, the security industry is generally looking stronger as we move towards 2014. However, pressure still remains on margins, and this doesn’t appear to be
Neil Catton Managing Director CIS
Looking forward, there will be an increasing desire for security businesses to look at how they can add value
to manned guarding contracts. This desire will be dominated by the search for creative methods that incorporate technical solutions to complement the existing manned guarding service. This is not a new phenomenon and capital investment in these types of solutions is increasingly becoming common place. The incentive to invest is being caused by the need of the procurement sector to be resourceful and to maintain long term relationships with their suppliers.
2014 will see Business Licensing in the implementation stages. First indication is that this will be a relatively straightforward process that will offer empowerment to manned guarding companies. But it brings about the questions of 'At what cost?' and 'What effect will this have on other Industry Associations?' With an upturn in the financial climate expected, there should be optimism that a return to sensible pricing can be anticipated. This in turn will allow for real investment to be made in training, management support and enhanced equitable wage levels. Both large and small companies should grasp the opportunity to focus on professional standards with probity and integrity, aimed towards both clients and employees.
changing any time soon. I expect to see acquisitions and mergers continue through 2014.
This next year will provide some challenging moments across the industry, and I hope we all get through it prosperously.
Jonathan Levine CEO Axis Group
It has been an exciting and challenging year both for the industry and for us as a business. Being named
Manned Guarding Company of the Year at the Security Excellence Awards and achieving one of the highest scores ever achieved in our ACS audit augurs well for the future, and the industry also seems to have recovered (though perhaps not completely) from the negative publicity surrounding the Olympics.
But many of the issues that I, and other senior leaders within this industry, have been discussing for several years are still with us. The cost of manned guarding, and the prices we are allowed to charge, are constantly under review. The ferociously competitive nature of what we do puts margins under pressure, and ultimately threatens the quality of service.
The challenge – historically, today and in the future – will be in protecting those margins whilst still being able to invest. Increasingly we are looking at how technology can improve both the quality and the efficiency of the services we deliver, and add value in such critical areas as incident management, for example. We are looking at how, as an industry, we can further improve the quality of training we provide for our people, and how we attract the right people as security officers and managers. We are also looking at how the increased costs of areas such as licensing and the future company registration requirement can be met, and to what extent they can be absorbed.
Experience shows that the market – and certainly the blue-chips – often favours the niche players who are more fleet of foot, innovative and adaptable, and who can offer a ‘solution’ rather than a single service, but we all share a common challenge: our customers will continue to demand more from us, and we need to find ways of meeting those demands whilst maintaining standards and margins.
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© CI TY S ECURI TY MAGAZ INE – WINT E R 2014
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