The I4S Interview: Bill Freear (Pilgrims Group) (Part One)

Security specialist Pilgrims Group won the Security Training Initiative of the Year category at the 2012 Security Excellence Awards for the SAFE training programme.

On the night, the citation read: “Out of 26 bidders, Pilgrims was successfully awarded the prestigious Foreign and Commonwealth Office Safety Awareness in Fragile Environments (SAFE) courses. These enable Her Majesty’s Government personnel to access essential pre-deployment safety training: a crucial element prior to travelling in fragile or otherwise hostile environments.”

The citation continued: “To date, a 99% pass rate of all delegates attending the SAFE and SAFE Plus courses has been achieved. Client feedback has been so positive from attendees that course numbers have almost doubled in comparison to previous participation levels. Pilgrims is currently exceeding client SLAs and KPIs by 40% with a score of 87, focusing on quality of instructor delivery and scenarios, relevance for fragile regions and quality of theory lessons.”

Impressive stuff to say the very least, but training isn’t the only discipline at which Pilgrims Group excels. The company is also renowned for its security guarding operations, information and intelligence solutions and operational consultancy.

Speaking of consultancy, the company adopts an integrated approach to this particular discipline in the firm belief – and it’s a wholly correct one – that no single element of security can be totally divorced from another (whether you’re talking about human security, physical security, technical/IT security, guarding, business continuity management or disaster recovery). All are underwritten by intelligence and thorough analyses.

To find out more about how the business has changed during these last five years to suit both market dynamics and the customer base, Info4Security travelled to Pilgrims Group’s headquarters at the Links Business Centre in Surrey for an exclusive chat with managing director Bill Freear.

Info4Security (I4S): How has the security marketplace changed for Pilgrims Group during the past five years, and what do you believe to be the key challenges at present?

Bill Freear (BF): For one thing, countries like Iraq and Afghanistan are certainly making it more difficult for foreign companies to remain. That’s leading to a reduction in competition for us, but not necessarily any increase in the collective standard of service delivery across the board.

The Arab Spring has undoubtedly led to a much greater global need for security support, but as a result of the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan everyone’s now looking for far leaner and smarter security solutions. That requires innovation based on expertise.

You’d also have to say that increasing price pressures are leading to some unusual behaviour when it comes to winning work, and that’s often to be found at the expense of the service delivery standards I just mentioned.

On top of all this, there’s now an enhanced demand for corporate governance compliance emanating from the larger corporate organisations. That supports our consultancy work and will help avoid some of the high profile cases around non-compliance that have hit the headlines.

In terms of security guarding, companies are looking for more and more value while, in the wider security sector, there has been an escalation in the requirement for instant information to support decisions that need to be made around risk.

I4S: What changes have you made to your team at Pilgrims during this time period?

BF: We’ve strengthened our senior management team to include higher levels of corporate, Government and commercial experience. There has also been significant investment in our central and overseas management teams designed to support sustained growth.

Across the board we’ve invested heavily in training for security guarding, business travellers and personal safety. Indeed, we’ve completely transformed our training offer to provide a much more dynamic mix of practical and online-based learning.

Right now we’re in the process of evaluating the way in which we provide e-business support, and we’re looking all the while at enhanced training for staff that’s focused on customer insight.

I4S: How has the company’s overall solutions offering evolved to meet the demands of the market?

BF: If we look at corporate governance consulting, we can now point towards even greater customer insight from a stronger team. We’ve realised genuine innovation in our security guarding solutions and in terms of the training programmes underway.

Every step of the way, we’re always conscious of the fact we need to make the financial offer highly competitive while maintaining the strength of the Pilgrims brand.

We’ve also looked to obtain investment into the business so that we can increase our financial capabilities while at the same time localising our overseas teams’ set-ups.

I4S: Has there been any discernible changes to Pilgrims Group’s customer base and their overriding requirements?

BF: The first thing to say is that our client base has expanded across the last five years to include customers in many sectors, among them the oil and gas industries, the energy sector, the service and telecommunications sectors, NGOs, the media and the pharmaceutical and financial worlds.

The needs of end users in all of these sectors have changed as many customers now have to play with reduced budgets, but at the same time desire increased value for money and greater flexibility from their suppliers as well as our assistance in maintaining their corporate governance processes.

In other words, the customers often want more for less and it’s up to us to address that issue.

*Check back on Info4Security tomorrow for Part Two of this exclusive interview