Our security risk consultants advise clients across all sectors on the structures, people, processes and technology they need to protect their operations and assets.
As well as that, our specialist trainers – based in Sussex, England but able to be deployed anywhere across the globe – provide courses that give clients the skills, knowledge and confidence to work abroad in high-risk environments, or to build efficient national security assets, such as police departments or defence capabilities.
The IAS team is based in London and made up of experienced intelligence analysts, each dealing with a specific global region. A good recent example of the value IAS provides our clients was our monitoring of the recent political unrest in Mali.
We have a large UN de-mining contract there, and in August our analyst detected key indicators that the threat within the country was beginning to develop rapidly into a serious situation. This situation looked like it could lead to an imminent violent overthrow of the government. Monitoring developments throughout the night, our analyst contacted our team in Mali who, in turn, spoke to the client. Thanks to our information, the client could respond quickly when the military coup did indeed happen shortly after.
OUR ANALYSTS
Most of our analysts have specialised in politics and international relations since their university days, and many have post-graduate degrees in subjects such as international affairs.
Expertise in their chosen field is obviously important, but the key characteristic of a good analyst is natural intellectual curiosity coupled with a strong attention to detail – someone who will spot a potential line of enquiry and then pursue it to see where it leads.
Our people have the skills to recognise a potential intelligence ‘thread’ and pull it to see where it leads. We look for people who are persistent, experienced and incredibly invested in their work.
We use multiple commercial sources to gather our information and turn it into intelligence. Clients also give us access to their data, and we have an active feedback loop from our own people in the field. We use a number of digital systems to carry out open-source monitoring and have the capability, where necessary, to conduct live situation and sentiment analysis, including any dark-web activity that could impact clients.
Difference between Intelligence and Information
Put simply, intelligence is information that has been subjected to rigorous analysis and criticism. It’s then that it can be used as a basis to support good decision making. Our IAS team takes the latter and turns it into the former.
What makes our business different from our competitors
What makes G4S stand out in this sector isn’t the individual services our teams can provide – our competitors can supply specialist analysts, or specialist security advice or specialist training. The difference is that we provide all three combined. No-one else can do this, which puts G4S in a unique position as a one-stop shop for analysis, advice and training.
HOW HAS OUR BUSINESS BEEN AFFECTED BY THE PANDEMIC
Our analysis work is mostly online, so from that perspective we’re fortunate that the intelligence service we provide has been largely unaffected.
However, we have faced the challenge of maintaining a strong team dynamic while working remotely. As much as possible – observing appropriate social distancing – we’ve tried to get people together. For our work in testing and challenging information, cross-pollination of ideas is important, and that doesn’t happen as naturally when working in separate environments.
Communication has been vital. As a business we’ve been doing all we can – including daily video conference meetings in the afternoon, when the demands of the day have become clear. We ask people to keep their cameras on, because human contact is important.
On the specialist training side, it hasn’t been possible to carry out face-to-face sessions, but again, we’ve been lucky that all our clients stuck with us during lockdown and were willing to push courses back to later in the year or to try virtual offerings instead. The business of delivering training has been slow and frustrating, but we haven’t lost any contracts – and we’ve actually picked up some additional clients.
It’s been similar for security risk management. It’s been easier to maintain business as close to usual as possible in the UK and Europe, where virtual communication is more widely accepted. But in other parts of the world, where meeting face-to-face and shaking someone’s hand play a greater role in doing business, it’s been more challenging. But as people become accustomed to the ‘new normal’ – wearing face masks and being socially distanced – we’re seeing it start to rise again.
In fact, I recently came back from Dubai, where I met a delegation of ministers from a foreign government about a major opportunity, so with persistence it is certainly still possible to meet clients and discuss business.
OUR MAIN PRIORITIES AS WE ENTER A ‘NEW NORMAL’
I think one issue here is that we’re still waiting to find out precisely what that looks like. I think it’s all going to be about the world finding a level at which it can safely operate, and it’s clear that some things will have to be different.
One thing that we believe will happen is that more companies and governments will review their contingency plans and crisis management measures on the back of the pandemic – and that’s something G4S can help them with.
In January and February this year, when it was becoming clear what was about to happen, organisations went to look at their contingency plans and found that they’d been written many years previously, and were little more than a box-ticking exercise in a dust-covered file. And, for many, that meant they were under-prepared for Covid-19.
We have one client, a sporting enterprise with global operations, who we prepared a C19 bulletin for last year, when we began to monitor what was happening in Wuhan closely. They had a number of major events planned for this year, and so we were able to provide them with data to help them make decisions and plan for contingencies.
WHY ARE THE G4S VALUES SO IMPORTANT?
A company’s values are a way to crystallise its essence as a business, and ours differentiate us in the marketplace. For international governments and companies, we’re seen as a business they can have faith in, which is trustworthy and with business ethics that are beyond reproach.
Our ethics, which stem from our values as a business, resonate very well with our customer base, who know they can count on us to do our best for them, in a trustworthy manner, while providing value for money.
