If the security industry doesn’t take control of their own training and set standard qualifications for the industry, then we will lose big market share to generic IT providers; we need to professionalise by being qualified. This was the warning delivered by Kings Security CEO, Anthony King, at the company’s Insight and Innovation 2015 conference in September, at Carden Park in Cheshire. The company unveiled KIS (Kings Intelligence Service).
Anthony King said: “There is a huge skills gap within the industry at the moment, leaving it vulnerable to IT providers who will take over the provision of the security solution and have no industry knowledge.”
This is scary stuff for Anthony and the Kings Security team, who see plug and play operators as high risk, creating an opportunity for hackers and cyber-attacks.
He said: “If a digital recorder is not secure, it could potentially allow access onto a main corporate network. Allowing engineers to install these systems without the understanding of what they are doing, adding IP CCTV, could be your biggest network problem.”
Kings engineers have been through Milestone video management software courses to extend their skills. Managers, including Anthony, are also put through their paces by attending security management professional courses. The Bradford-based company spent the last year working on KIS, which aims to offer its clients a fuller ‘intelligence cycle’, by bringing all data sources onto one platform.
KIS has been developed to help identify crime hot-spots and profile crime, by allowing users to analyse crime data such as; what time of day and week burglaries or shop thefts are happening and which security measures actually work.
Anthony said: “It’s time for a huge reality check for all of us, the times are changing and there’s only going to be so much the police are able to do. We as an industry have to step up. Low-level crime is something police are just not able to give time and attention to.” Either ‘we’ – private security and indeed society – let low-level crime just happen, or we take the lead in loss prevention methods – crime without consequences is not an acceptable world to live in.
“We want to work alongside and support the police, to minimise shrinkage (in retail) and apprehend offenders. Our aim is to use KIS to help close the gap between collecting our evidence, be it on CCTV or witness statements and deliver a dossier of information to the police to help them make the arrest and bring the criminal to justice.
“We are going to have to get smarter and learn to help ourselves, sharing data with competitors to help bring results. The Kings Security KIS system will play an instrumental part in developing and leading the way for the industry and ensures we all operate in a much more informed and effective way. We need to operate and be brave enough to have vision without boundaries.”
To learn more about KIS
Call 0800 804 6171, email [email protected] or visit http://www.kingsltd.co.uk/business-security/retail/intelligence-service-kis-retail/.
Photo by Mark Rowe: left to right at Carden Park: the new Head of Strategic Engagement at Kings, former Met Police man Rob King (no relation), Philip Kay of the Co-op, among the guests; and Anthony King.
