Doug Hewitson, the Managing Director of G4S Secure Solutions Group introduces his third blog on Infologue.com. Doug writes: “For many industries, security included, the last five years or so have marked a period of great transition; an increasingly competitive marketplace, a heightened sense of national security and huge technological advances have prompted companies to redress their business strategy, including their own security initiatives.
G4S has been at the forefront of this transition, working with our customers to help effect and support these changes, in each case delivering a service that is tailored precisely to that customer’s individual challenges and needs.
The focus must be on more than simply ‘getting the job done’, but rather going that extra mile, making sure we remain in touch with new commercial challenges, and market demands, in order to provide the best customer service possible. Our customers are central to us and we believe that strong partnerships provide the foundation on which we build our business.
To ensure we deliver that increased insight to our customers we routinely study developing trends across different jurisdictions and disciplines. By forming a greater understanding of current security issues and threats that are likely to impact our customers in the future, we can tailor security solutions that have a more robust and lasting effect.
It’s this approach which has led to improved results for many of our customers across a broad range of markets and sectors. Our history of strong partnerships spans a broad spectrum of industries, from banking to transport, through to retail, oil and gas and events. Gone are the days when a one size fits all model can be imparted on a different set of customers – no two customers have the same issues or needs so it therefore applies that no two customers can be offered the same solution.
In recent times we have seen a number of companies undertake significant restructuring of their security services as serious terrorist incidents across the world led to heightened security threat levels in the UK. We worked alongside our customers to combat these threats and shape their security plans to ensure they were fit for the most rigorous modern day demands.
One of our customers in the transport sector, Northern Rail, faced a rather different set of challenges altogether after it became apparent that many of their passengers were travelling without tickets, either because of the lack of ticket machines at smaller stations, or simply through fare evasion. At peak times when conductors were physically unable to pass through the whole train, large numbers of passengers would arrive without having bought a ticket, resulting in huge amounts of uncollected revenue quite literally walking out of the door.
In response, G4S provided a flexible, responsive and multifunctional solution. This involved providing mobile human barrier lines at major city stations, as well as additional retail points at smaller, local stations through the use of mobile ticket issuing systems. Crucially, the solution was self-funding, based on the revenue collected, while also providing an additional security element that helped to minimise anti-social behaviour, trespass and vandalism.
In a rapidly evolving world, and as the marketplace continues to pose challenges both to the security sector as well as to others, it is vital that we adapt and acclimatise to the changing demands of our customers. Only by doing this can we continue to deliver the very best customer-focused and innovative secure solutions.