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Effective integrated security solutions

Having dealt with government organisations including local government, provincial government and national government for more than 30 years, it is blatantly clear that many of these organisations need assistance in managing their varied disciplines through the use of technology, software solutions, measurable management of service providers and staff, and proper beneficial integration of the three pillars, namely 'people, process and technology'.

Government and semi-government in South Africa are, without a doubt, the biggest users and spend in security, including technology, systems and personnel. When engaging with service providers and suppliers, in many instances the client is misinformed of the best solutions to meet their requirement, and is very often at the mercy of the salesperson who is trying to promote his product/s, which is not always the best fit for the client.

Manpower

From a manpower point of view, whether it be guarding, cleaning, maintenance, landscaping or any other form of manpower being provided by service providers, government and semi-government organisation invariably have many buildings or sites that fall under their responsibility. They are responsible for hundreds, if not thousands of buildings within a province or nationally, and utilise the services of multiple service providers supplying contract staff in many disciplines. Effective management of these thousands of contract staff is almost impossible to achieve, and the client in many cases (not in all cases) is being short changed by sub-standard or non-delivery of services. Integrated solutions encompassing GSM-enabled biometrics, roster and payroll software, traditionally utilised by the service provider, can provide the client with a solution to effectively measure, manage and review performance of services rendered, and provide an immediate ROI to the client which in many cases equates to millions of rands in savings. This is just one case where integration assists in overcoming challenges faced by organisations, not just in government.

Integrated security solutions

Government departments and companies spend many millions of rands on acquiring technology (not only security related) and sub-systems to manage everything from CCTV, access control, alarm/fire panels, X-ray machines and the like. Each of these technologies or systems performs its specific function well under ideal circumstances, provided they are maintained and kept functional. This is exactly the problem when it comes to (many, not all) government institutions; equipment is procured, implemented and utilised until they malfunction, and then invariably stay in a dysfunctional state for extended periods of time, if not permanently. SLAs, if they exist, are not measured or enforced, and a state of decay of equipment ensues. When last did you enter a government building and walk straight through an X-ray machine or metal detector that was not functional?

From an integration point of view, very little integration exists in most government departments, barring perhaps the basic CCTV and access control at best. From experience with our most successful clients who apply and share our vision, integration can be achieved on a database level to address specific challenges faced by the client; in order to do this an operations/information management system (OMS) is required to glue the various components together; the integration should be based upon the client’s policy and procedures, existing technologies and sub-systems, and the various stakeholder requirements. The key word in this is information management system; all systems provide a source of specific and bespoke data or information, but the power to the client is in applying this information to overcome operational challenges.

For example, by integrating the OMS to the access control system via the databases, in the event of a bomb threat, procedures should exist and be followed. By automatically interrogating the access control system from the OMS at the moment of the bomb threat being logged, we can determine exactly who is in the building at the time, disseminate this information to the relevant floor marshals onto any mobile device, which enables the marshal to immediately account for staff/visitors under his/her responsibility at the mustering points, without worrying about staff that were not in the building at the time. This operational efficiency just had a massive benefit to the client in many different aspects.

Integration should not only be about coupling different hardware together, but rather tie into an OMS where the rules are applied and actioned according to the requirement of the client, relating to the specific event taking place.

Ownership of technology and sub-systems

Questions that the end-user clients should be asking are “Who should take ownership of security and risk technologies and management software, as well as who should maintain the relationship with the technology or software vendor?” Should it be the security provider or the client? Traditionally many of these systems have been sold into the service providing companies, who utilise them to monitor and manage their own contract personal on the end client’s sites.

The first problem with this is that companies tend to change their service providers on a fairly regular basis, either due to tender process, company policy or just bad performance in some cases. And when this occurs, the service provider leaves your site with the systems it is renting you the client, as well as your valuable data. The next service provider to be appointed either comes on site with a different system, or in many cases, no system at all.

The second problem is that, although the service provider may be utilising these systems to manage their own personnel, it is highly unlikely that the client ever gets to hear about poor or non-service delivery in relation to SLAs. This means:

* The end client does not have access to all the information or reports on exceptions that the systems provide; if this is controlled by the service provider company they may provide only the information which they want their client to see.

* If the client chooses to terminate the services of the service provider, the software with all its data tends to go with; in some cases this is because the client does not even know that such a solution is in use or does not know that valuable management reports were available from it.

* If there is a training or user issue, these often do not get resolved efficiently or effectively as the software provider can lose touch with the user due to the middle role player.

* The client unknowingly pays for the solution anyway, as it forms part of operational costs to service that client.

* In some cases the cost of the system is doubled without the software provider or the client knowing.

* Most importantly, it is the data mining opportunity, business intelligence (BI) and reporting that the end client has no or limited access to.

A shift in thinking needs to take place in the market place and end clients need to start realising that these management tools have a far greater value to their companies than merely being in the hands of the service provider. So, if we agree that the client should hold the relationship, what are the benefits to the end client and the service provider?

* Major savings by ensuring that service providers comply.

* Monitoring the SLA and meeting expectations both ways.

* Reporting – time saving in cutting down the time it takes management to compile reports in often critical times of the month.

* These management systems can provide value in areas other than just security; maintenance, cleansing, logistics and operations are all areas that can benefit.

* Improves efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery.

* The data built up over years can be used to build complex trends to counter criminal activity and importantly remains with the right people.

* Improves security, risk and asset management.

* Holds the right people accountable for delivering service excellence.

Kevin Buret, MD, Sukema Integrated Solutions

It is all about compliance/non-compliance, accountability and business intelligence in order to make informed decisions. And in today’s economic climate, we should all be trying to get the very best value for our rand. If you are paying for a service and are not managing it correctly, you will not have any idea of how much money you are wasting every month. And you cannot manage it effectively without taking ownership of the management tools.

To summarise, there is an over abundance of technology and systems on the market (look at CCTV brands as a simple example), but they are not all/always suitable to be implemented in different environments. The difficult part is deciding on what technologies and systems fit the environment the best, and how to apply these in an integrated way, where the data obtained from all/some of these technologies is fed into a management system and presented to the stakeholder in a usable, operational efficient manner.

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