Oscar Macías, the Juárez-based regional director of Securitas, said that while the company’s finances have been positive overall, they have not been as high as he’d like.
For one, he said, the company’s earnings have been eaten up by investments in equipment and salary increases.
Since 2008, Macías said, Securitas has toughened up its training and recruiting processes and upgraded technology to meet the growing expectations of an increasingly demanding clientele.
“We have to invest in quality to make sure the client is satisfied,” he said.
Having to ‘invest in quality to make sure the client is satisfied’? Now that is music to my ears. lol Not to mention salary increases and investments in equipment sounds great too. You have to take care of your people if you want good customer service and satisfaction.
But most importantly, these companies have to invest in good quality management to ensure that everything operates the way it is supposed to. From the shift leader all the way up to the project manager, a company must focus on quality management. You can have high salaries for employees and the best equipment ever, but unless your guard force is well organized, trained and managed, then all of that is for not. It is that management that will ensure good customer service and satisfaction, and continuous improvement (Kaizen).
You know what would be an interesting study is to actually do a customer and employee/contractor survey to see exactly what the companies are doing right and what they are doing wrong in Mexico. With Juarez being the most dangerous city out there, perhaps in the world, this kind of study might be pretty influential in the realm of private security research and industry best practices. –Matt
Juárez cranks up private security
Businesses spent 45 percent more than in 2009
January 2011
By Alejandro Martínez-Cabrera
JUáREZ – Confronted with the city’s bloodiest year to date, businesses in Ciudad Juárez spent 45 percent more for private security in 2010 than the year before, according to figures reported by private security companies.
Juárez “is the city with the largest increase in security investments,” said Ivette Estrada, spokeswoman for the Private Security National Council, or CNSP, an association of security firms in Mexico. It calculated the increase using data provided by its 298 members.
The average increase in private security expenditures for Mexican border cities was 33 percent, Estrada said.
At the national level, the council estimated that companies in Mexico spent an average 11.3 percent of their production costs for insurance and security services in 2010, compared to 7 percent the year before and between 3 and 5 percent in 2008.
Last year was the most violent in Ciudad Juárez so far, with a record 3,111 drug-related killings, bringing the total number of violent deaths in the city since 2008 to at least 7,488.
Faced with the inability of Mexican authorities to stem the wave of crime and brutality pummeling the city, Juarenses have invested heavily in alarm systems, closing off streets with gates and hiring private security to guard neighborhood entrances.
Similarly, small and large businesses are beefing up security by investing more in intelligence, hiring more personnel and upgrading facilities.
Delphi corporate security manager Jaime Garcia told El Paso Inc. that his budget has increased by about 300 percent and his security staff by 100 percent since 2008.
In the last three years, his company has seen an increase in extortion and tractor-trailer theft cases, Garcia said. It’s also had to address issues of travel safety with employees, as well as how to respond in case of a car jacking or kidnapping.
“Normally you don’t have to tell your spouse ‘hey honey, if you get a phone call, go ahead and pay this much.’ These are not conversations that you normally have, but now that’s a realistic thing,” he said.
Security at all Delphi facilities has been beefed up by increasing the number of cameras, installing panic buttons, improving perimeter fencing, having stricter controls of who goes in and out, and conducting tougher background checks on new security employees and even suppliers.
Garcia said he employs about 850 guards to protect the company’s 11 facilities in Juárez. Seventy-five percent of them are contracted workers, including some from transnational security firm Securitas.
Higher expectations
But the increase in security expenditures has not meant a bonanza for security companies.
Oscar Macías, the Juárez-based regional director of Securitas, said that while the company’s finances have been positive overall, they have not been as high as he’d like.
For one, he said, the company’s earnings have been eaten up by investments in equipment and salary increases.
Since 2008, Macías said, Securitas has toughened up its training and recruiting processes and upgraded technology to meet the growing expectations of an increasingly demanding clientele.
“We have to invest in quality to make sure the client is satisfied,” he said.
And despite the fact that in the last three years Securitas has developed stronger ties and increased business with many long-time clients in Juárez, there are few new ones.
“Many companies have stopped working or investing here, which has made our growth opportunities difficult,” he said.
However, Macías said, the instability in Juárez has made current and potential clients place a higher value on reliable security. That’s helped firms like his differentiate themselves from the many security services that operate without regulation.
According to municipal authorities, there are 164 active private security companies registered in Juárez. But the Private Security National Council estimates 800 companies are operating in the city.
The Mexican newspaper El Universal reported last year that the number of private security companies registered with the federal government went up from 421 to 665 between 2007 and 2009.
But David Chong, general secretary at the Euro-American Security Corporation, another private security association with a presence in Mexico, said more than 9,000 security companies advertise in the Yellow Pages across the country.
Unregulated companies often offer lower rates, but their personnel and services can also be less reliable, Chong said.
“Security is a supply-and-demand market, so clients often go for the cheapest option, forgetting that, in the long run, what’s cheap turns out to be more expensive,” he said.
Better intelligence
Private security providers and consultants said they’ve seen a change in the types of services clients want.
Bill Besse, vice president of consulting and investigations at the transnational security firm Andrews International, said his clients are asking for more GPS monitoring of shipping goods, security assessments of residences and corporate offices, and briefings on topics such as protective driving skills and measures to prevent surveillance.
But not every company has significantly scaled up its security budget.
“If I’d say (it has increased by) 10 or 15 percent, that would be a lot,” said K. Alan Russell, president of the TECMA group, an outsourcing company that operates several plants in Juárez.
Russell said his company has also invested in things like improved fencing, but its focus has been better security procedures, not more infrastructure or personnel.
For example, he said, after suffering a few robberies in early 2008, ATMs were removed from TECMA’s facilities and money is no longer kept at plants. For the most part, his plants haven’t had an incident since 2008, Russell said.
“I can’t say an increase in security makes a difference. If you were targeted and they really wanted you, it wouldn’t matter. But we’ve always felt that our highest risk comes from random carjackings and random robberies, not organized hits,” he said.
Still, like most other large corporations operating in Juárez, when it comes to security, Russell places the most value today on intelligence gathering and information sharing.
“The intelligence component has become critical,” said the owner and chief operating officer of the security consultant Grupo Savant, who asked that his name not be used.
“The cartels are now fighting all over and it becomes critical for you as a security officer, if you’re providing personnel protection, to know what’s happening now and where. You can’t protect your VIP if you don’t know what’s going on in the area you are traveling to.”
Story here.