RiskUKOctober2017

Security Services: Best Practice Casebook
thefts that can put a big dent in company
profits, and especially so in the current
economic climate wherein margins are tight.
These thefts are a mixture of opportunistic and
organised crime. Sadly, this problem shows no
sign of abating, as in recent years the tactics
being deployed by potential thieves have
become more sophisticated.
The challenge for companies is that,
inevitably, all of their staff tend to become very
familiar with the buildings in which they’re
working and the security measures already in
place. They have first-hand knowledge of how
the guarding patrols operate, where the
technology such as CCTV is located and where
valuable items of stock are resident. All of this
makes it relatively easy for a potential thief.
Many seasonal staff tend to work across
several warehouses in a region and are able to
identify those which are the least secure.
Individuals with criminal intentions will
exchange information and tactics and
sometimes work in collaboration to try and
smuggle goods out of a warehouse.
The drivers know that there are not the
resources available to search every vehicle and
just simply wait until another vehicle has been
stopped before adding ‘stolen’ items or failing
to scan certain parcels. They know that the
static security provision in a warehouse will
have no meaningful ability to catch them once
they’re through the perimeter gates.
Although vetting procedures such as
checking employment history are employed
when recruiting staff to try and avoid taking on
‘risky’ individuals, such measures will not
prevent all forms of theft. While the designs of
warehouses have evolved to feature increased
technology and multi-level access control
including turnstiles, cages and locked-off areas
for high value items, at the end of the day such
precautions can only go so far.
profiling. Within a traditional security set-up,
searches may become rather predictable in
terms of frequency and location. Therefore,
‘high impact teams’ may be employed to
augment this standard approach, arriving on
site unannounced to check areas such as
property and lockers, in addition to staff and
contractors. They’re often acting on
‘intelligence’ and tip-offs and use the latest
technology, such as body-worn video, to record
evidence vital for building a criminal case.
As well as searching vehicles as they leave
the depot, team members can deliver covert
monitoring of drivers on their rounds, often
alerted by the GPS that shows an employee has
veered off route, possibly to offload stolen
property somewhere. In short, the thieves have
no way of knowing when or where the ‘high
impact teams’ will appear. It’s this level of
unpredictability that’s key to reducing loss.
Over the past four years, the ‘high impact
teams’ deployed by Cordant Security have been
responsible for discovering over 3,000 thefts
across a range of clients that have resulted in
employees being dismissed and, in some cases,
the police making arrests. For one client, we
saved over £2 million per annum in static
security guarding costs which they have
partially reinvested in having much greater
national coverage courtesy of our teams.
It’s also a solution that will work for smallersized
businesses that often struggle with the
costs of a traditional security solution. At a
fixed price, they can procure as many high
impact searches as they need without any longterm
commitment and easily ramp this up or
down in line with changes in their business.
Brendan Musgrove: Managing
Director of Cordant Security
High impact teams
In response to this, security solutions have had
to evolve. While technology remains key and
the traditional model of having static security
teams on site is still very effective for some
organisations, we’re increasingly
recommending the use of ‘high impact teams’
to complement or even replace them.
Fundamentally, these ‘high impact teams’ are
designed to make security provision far more
dynamic in meeting the changing profile of risk,
while at the same time introducing a level of
unpredictability for the potential thief.
Such teams are trained to the highest
standards in a range of techniques such as
covert activity, search procedures and offender
“While technology remains key and the traditional model
of having static security teams on site is still very effective
for some organisations, we’re increasingly recommending
the use of ‘high impact teams’ to complement them”
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