The security sector is rapidly changing in Spain.
Until relatively a short time ago, its image is associated with the surveillance in the most literal sense: a person who protected an enclosure.
However, the electronics gain ground by leaps and bounds, to the point that today a security project is not understood without that technological component.
“In the current world,” says Zacarías Erimias, president and delegate director of Securitas Security Spain, “is giving an obvious convergence between physical and digital security. And there are also not standardized projects. When a client deposits his confidence in us,
We carry out a risk analysis, we study your specific needs and offer a personalized response, which combines our different solution lines, from face-to-face, which perform our jurored guards, remote, through cameras and other equipment. ”
The turning point occurred in 2014. Until then, 90% of the Securitas business was traditional surveillance.
“It was a service that was running obsolete, so we decided to create a mix of product, in which a more technological part began to have room. Seven years later, that traditional surveillance still has a weight of 51.8%, although with
A more sophisticated profile, while technology and electronics have raised its presence up to 48.2% “.
What is pursued is to constantly update the proposal to improve efficiency.
“We live a very interesting period, of cultural transformation within the company.”
This digitization process has allowed the company to face the pandemic with guarantees.
In addition, they had the small advantage that private security was declared essential activity and did not interrupted their activity.
In most of the portfolio, he was able to continue working 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
“Thanks to that we have stayed close to customers and have adapted our protection services, according to what the new situation required: thermal cameras, control of aprote … That constant and narrow contact with customers has given us the opportunity of
React quickly to new demands and adapt to what was necessary at all times. ”
In total, of the 18,500 people who form the Template of Securitas in Spain, 17,000 work on the ground.
The company closed 2020 with a turnover of 634 million euros in our country, which represents 9% more than the previous year.
1% corresponds to organic growth, a success in time of pandemic, and the other 8%, to the acquisition in January last year of Techco Security.
“It is significant,” says CEO, “that the lines of business with technological component grew by about 80%”.
ERIMIAS It is clear that Securitas must deepen in the execution of a lustro.
“We are a long-term strategy company. For us, the ability to reaction and adaptation is fundamental. We will continue investing in technology (Internet of things, artificial intelligence …) to maintain a two-digit annual growth”.
That growth can not be achieved, however, at all costs.
ERIMIAS claims what he calls “healthy growth”.
“We must ensure quality and profitability. Otherwise, we can not continue investing or generating employment.”
With regard to the services demanded by the market, the last year has marked an interesting trend: remote services have gained ground, a trend that seems to follow.
In addition, risk analysis becomes one of the keys to success.
“We live in a more vulnerable society, new threats arise that force us to analyze the situation cyclically, every year or two years, to constantly update security levels, we must be able to predict and anticipate new problems.”
Auto-filtering
Artificial intelligence (IA) has burst strongly in the sector and begins to make a difference when we refer to security devices.
IA embedded in security cameras allows them to be the teams themselves that filter the events they capture and decide when it is a real alarm and when a false, something that until recently required the intervention of a human.
Precisely that technological line is what you want to follow securitas also in possible purchases that complement organic growth.
“Throughout our history we have done eight acquisitions and continue to analyze opportunities, but we are clear that our goal is developing companies, with talent and technological profile”.
