Author: Waldemar Schmidt, Gordon Adler and Els van Weering
ISBN No:
Review date: 25/07/2026
No of pages: 184
Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
Year of publication: 11/09/2012
Brief:
Ever wondered about Securitas and Group 4 Falck - how those Nordic manned guarding giants do it?
Winning At Service covers four service sector firms, including those two, that, the authors say, have conquered the world of services. From interviews with staff from the very top down, the book suggests some winning strategies. Pick your game and play it (business models you can repeat throughout the organisation, with transparent and simple performance measurements); passionate and inspirational leadership; passion for people (to retain staff); and keep it simple (minimum bureaucracy). Contributors include Thomas Berglund, Securitas Chief Executive; and at Group 4 Falck, Lars Norby Johanen, Chief Executive; Jorgen Philip Sorensen, chairman of the board; Linda Sharpe, principal of the company’s academy; and Richard Sutton, Group Human Resources Director.
Take the old chestnut for guarding firms – how to recruit and keep staff, officers and managers. Group 4 say they analyse the characteristics of those who leave after a short time. Team players with the right attitude seem to fit the bill, rather than a police, Amry or security (or any particular) background. The authors quote Linda Sharpe: ‘We are good at mobilising large numbers of middle management semi-professionals. In the UK prisons business, for example, we have hired our prison directors from outside, but underneath that we developed our own teams by recruiting people who have good internpersonal and communications skills and then we have trained them in technical skills.’ The book is as likely to cover how the guarding firms work in France or Kazakhstan as the UK.
The book concludes that Group 4 and Securitas have become ‘juggernauts’ thanks to ‘deeply rooted robust and lasting strategies? to last 15 to 20 years. At times the book falls into the trap of so many business books of fawning and stating the obvious – that these winning firms are ‘people-driven’, for instance. Of more use is the question of how these giants have integrated firms they have acquired. It’s easy to buy out someone, but the trick is to teach the new local managers ‘the Securitas way’ so that the newcomers add to shareholder value. At the very top,the bosses know every nook and cranny, do not abide incompetence, but are not control freaks. The book ends by asking, piquantly, when the growth stops, and wonders if Securitas for instance will spin off its cash in transit business, leaving a core easier to manage.
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Many questions are unanswered. How do the biggest firms prevent staff fraud and corruption – whether it’s against the company or the client’ Also: how do you reconcile ‘the Securitas way’ – common practices that succeed across continents – with the very different pay rates and training regimes for officers in Sweden, say, and the UK? Plainly, these juggernauts do adapt to a country’s culture. The best way to learn the secrets of guarding success, one suspects, is to join one of the firms and find out yourself.<br><br>
Winning At Service – Lessons From Service Leaders, by Waldemar Schmidt, Gordon Adler and Els van Weering.
