VPS Holdings Limited - Experts & Thought Leaders

Port Glasgow-based site security firm Safer Scotland has secured its first international partnership deal amid substantial business growth and rebranded as Safer Group. Founded in 2016 by Greenock entrepreneur Ryan Clark, the business specializes in protecting construction sites, infrastructure, and assets with its high-tech intruder detection system, known as Safer Pod. Safer Pod S1 intruder detection system The business has grown strongly since its inception roughly doubling in size every 18 months. It has recorded its best year to date, which saw annual turnover soar from £5m to £12m and staff headcount exceed 60. “Our growth over the past year has been largely due to the launch of our Safer Pod S1 intruder detection system,” said CEO Ryan Clark. “We’ve built and deployed 1000 units in the past 12 months. In all my years working in security, I’ve never known a product to be adopted so quickly." International Partnership Our first international partnership, with VPS Group, will bring our pods to new markets in France, Germany, and Spain" “This success led us directly to our first international partnership, with VPS Group, which will bring our pods to new markets in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Ireland, and the Netherlands, as well as the rest of the UK." “In addition, our framework deal with infrastructure group Balfour Beatty agreed in June 2022, has also contributed to this year’s achievements.” Additional property The company’s rapid growth trajectory has seen it outgrow its current HQ at Kelburn Business Park, Port Glasgow, and its sales and marketing office in Paisley. Clark recently doubled the firm’s footprint by signing a lease on a second 6,000 sq ft unit at the Inverclyde industrial estate.  “This additional property will become a home for our support staff, allowing our current unit to become a dedicated research and testing facility for our new products,” he explained. “As the team grows further, I hope to be able to recruit locally wherever possible to give the Inverclyde jobs market a boost.” Improving opportunities for local people Clark has further ambitions for the company, which prompted the rebrand to Safer Group A Greenock resident, Clark is passionate about improving opportunities for local people and sponsors several young sportspeople and clubs, including MMA fighter Reece McEwan, Greenock Boxing Club, Greenock Juniors FC, and the local Jiu-Jitzu club. Clark has further ambitions for the company, which prompted the rebrand to Safer Group. “When we started seven years ago as a small security equipment hire business, ‘Safer Scotland’ reflected our local emphasis,” he explained. Next goal “But as we branch out into new markets across the UK and internationally via our new partnership with VPS Group, it is time to change our focus."  “Our next goal is to partner with more organizations internationally and keep growing, the USA would be the dream market for us to crack next.”

The fes­tive peri­od in the UK tra­di­tion­al­ly sees a sig­nif­i­cant rise in crime, with atten­tion focused on construc­tion sites dur­ing their exten­sive close­down, leav­ing high-val­ue plant, equip­ment, fuel and materi­als as unat­tend­ed, attrac­tive tar­gets. Vacant ware­hous­es, retail units, and oth­er com­mer­cial premis­es are also like­ly tar­gets for organ­is­ers of unlicensed music events – ille­gal raves – and squatters. The Char­tered Insti­tute of Building’s research found 92% of con­struc­tion sites expe­ri­enced theft reg­u­larly, and a sur­vey by pro­tec­tion experts The VPS Group indi­cat­ed that over 1 in 5 sites expe­ri­ence theft or van­dal­ism weekly.  Exter­nal pow­er sources Paul Corten, Sales Direc­tor for The VPS Group, said: “Past Christ­mas’ have seen a sig­nif­i­cant spike in thefts over the sea­son­al peri­od, but the secu­ri­ty indus­try is brac­ing itself for one of the most chal­leng­ing month’s ever as the impact of the pan­dem­ic, bank­rupt­cies and a loom­ing reces­sion com­bine to fuel a record lev­el of crim­i­nal activity.” Mobile CCTV tow­ers are also pop­u­lar because they can be rapid­ly deployed into differ­ent loca­tions Prop­er­ties with­out secu­ri­ty are up to five times more like­ly to be affect­ed, and vacant prop­er­ties and emp­ty sites in par­tic­u­lar, are prime tar­gets for thieves and trespassers. Because con­struc­tion sites and vacant prop­er­ties may have pow­er util­i­ties switched off over the seasonal peri­od, spe­cial­ist ​‘stand-alone’ alarm and CCTV sys­tems are rec­om­mend­ed, as they do not require exter­nal pow­er sources. Mobile CCTV tow­ers are also pop­u­lar because they can be rapid­ly deployed, and eas­i­ly moved into differ­ent loca­tions to ensure good cov­er­age of the areas need­ing pro­tec­tion. Video mon­i­tor­ing cen­tre They can be linked wireless­ly to var­i­ous heat and move­ment detec­tors and to each oth­er to pro­vide a net­work of ​‘eyes’ that can be mon­i­tored from a remote 24⁄7 video mon­i­tor­ing cen­tre over the holidays. Sim­i­lar­ly, more sophis­ti­cat­ed intrud­er alarm sys­tems have spe­cial­ist soft­ware ana­lyt­ics that sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the num­ber of false alarms.  Site and facil­i­ties man­agers should car­ry out perime­ter checks, ensure valu­able plant, met­als, or fuels are either removed or kept secured and out of sight. They could also call in an expert eye to car­ry out a secu­ri­ty risk assess­ment this week. ​“There’s still just time to assess require­ments and for the fast deploy­ment of extra secu­ri­ty mea­sures, that will save the post-hol­i­day headaches from crim­i­nal activity.” said VPS’ Paul Corten.

In Jan­u­ary, a crim­i­nal gang was brought to jus­tice in a Bel­gian court over a mil­lion-euro series of crane, exca­va­tor and trail­er thefts. The haul, includ­ing £480,000 cement pump­ing truck, a £108,000 bulk tanker, and £50,000 worth of trail­ers, were stolen then resprayed, and sold to unsus­pect­ing cus­tomers across the UK and Ireland.  Bring­ing with him 20 years of expe­ri­ence in the con­struc­tion sec­tor, hav­ing worked for multi­na­tion­al Alge­co Group, Andy Brind aims to high­light the extra ben­e­fits beyond the pro­tec­tion of the plant by deploy­ing tech­nol­o­gy for build­ing site security. The pressure of cutting costs “In these excep­tion­al times, the con­struc­tion sec­tor is under greater pres­sure than ever before. As Brex­it and the COVID-19 lock­downs cause sup­ply short­ages and oper­a­tional delays, they are strug­gling to square the cir­cle of deliv­er­ing projects whilst cut­ting costs, and doing so all the time with­in a COVID-secure environment.”  Andy explains,​“For exam­ple, there’s been a lot of media cov­er­age recent­ly about the pan­dem­ic dan­gers of Lon­don tubes filled with con­struc­tion work­ers going to work.” Day and night monitoring 24/7 cam­eras and sen­sors are mon­i­tored off-site and run inde­pen­dent­ly, often with­out an exter­nal pow­er sup­ply" “Some of these jour­neys could be reduced by deploy­ing mod­ern meth­ods of con­struc­tion, using tech­nolo­gies designed specif­i­cal­ly for the sec­tor. CCTV Smart Tow­ers, for exam­ple, could replace tra­di­tion­al secu­ri­ty guards, of which there must be thou­sands in Lon­don alone.” “The 24/7 cam­eras and sen­sors are mon­i­tored off-site and run inde­pen­dent­ly, often with­out an exter­nal pow­er sup­ply. They could help alle­vi­ate the need for so many work­ers to trav­el on the tube, plus they can save thou­sands of pounds in secu­ri­ty budgets.” Improving site security VPS Site Secu­ri­ty had seen a dra­mat­ic switch from human patrols to more guard­less sys­tems in the twelve months pri­or to the pan­dem­ic, but the trend is like­ly to keep ris­ing. Recent projects have seen sav­ings of over 60% in secu­ri­ty bud­gets, pro­vid­ing an improved, more com­pre­hen­sive secu­ri­ty net over­see­ing sites 24 hours a day but at low cost. They are work­ing strate­gi­cal­ly to increase their con­struc­tion part­ner­ships with some of the key play­ers in the mar­ket, and launch­ing addi­tion­al part­ner­ships short­ly. Their cur­rent cus­tomer base includes house­hold names in the con­struc­tion sec­tor, deploy­ing CCTV sys­tems to improve their site secu­ri­ty.  Use of manned guards Manned guards have always been the tra­di­tion­al main­stay approach in the build­ing sec­tor to secure dif­fi­cult sites" VPS itself has been sup­port­ing the secu­ri­ty and pro­tec­tion of sev­er­al High­ways of Eng­land Schemes and also the mas­sive Cross­Rail con­struc­tion project at Padding­ton Sta­tion, com­pris­ing five stories, most­ly under­ground, with 83 HD CCTV cam­eras, smart ana­lyt­ics ​‘vir­tu­al’ trip­wires, and onsite monitoring.  “Manned guards have always been the tra­di­tion­al main­stay approach in the build­ing sec­tor to secure dif­fi­cult or remote sites such as high­way con­struc­tion, and they will always be need­ed in cer­tain cir­cum­stances.” 24/7 pro­tec­tion and safe­ty Andy says ​“But tech­no­log­i­cal solu­tions have real­ly proven them­selves in recent years. So much so that, com­bined with tru­ly dra­mat­ic cost-sav­ings and bet­ter 24/7 pro­tec­tion and safe­ty, we’ve seen a def­i­nite shift towards sys­tems designed with CCTV includ­ed as the pre­ferred choice.”  Mobile patrols may still be required, but they are seen now as much more effi­cient when deployed with the sup­port of Tow­er sys­tems, as they can help tar­get problems. 

As the deal/no deal prospects of Brexit are tossed in a whirlwind of UK and EU politics, the uncertainty of the back-and-forth has broadly impacted general economic trends, and by extension, the physical security market. The new deadline for a Brexit agreement is October 31, already postponed six months from the scheduled April 12 departure date. Numbers show that Britain’s GDP shrank in the second quarter, possibly reflecting fewer exports because of Brexit uncertainty. And beyond the current indecision lies the long-term impact of a possible change in trading status between the United Kingdom and continental Europe. Other issues include capital flow and labor mobility. Brexit uncertainty leading to security concerns Loss of shared information with the EU will make the UK less safe “Companies … are unclear about their future,” comments Martin Warren of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. “Companies are making decisions now about jobs, supply chains, headquarters and asset locations, incurring significant, and possibly unnecessary, cost and upheaval.” Warren fears the destructive effects of a ‘no deal’ outcome and hopes politicians will break the deadlock and restore business confidence. Security implications of Brexit extend beyond economics. Loss of shared information with the EU will make the UK less safe. Extradition across EU borders will be more difficult, and exchange of data such as fingerprints and vehicle registrations is at risk. The Irish border after Brexit is of particular concern to security professionals. Countering threat of international terrorism Robert Hall of London First and Alison Wakefield of Security Institute say the security impact of departing the EU will be long lasting and profound. “In security terms, the UK will still have to contend with international terrorism, transnational crime and the global movement of people, all challenges that require wide scale cooperation.” They add that leaving the EU will require “a significant investment in people, resources and databases to cope with the anticipated volumes of traffic through ports, airports and tunnels.” Analyst company IHS Markit earlier commented about the impact on the security industry of Brexit’s drag on the UK economy, “Access control, intruder and fire alarm markets typically track construction rates closely and are forecast to be affected most. However, a large cut to infrastructure spending would be just as damaging to the video surveillance market.” UK security companies Prefer ‘soft exit’ from EU If a ‘soft exit’ trade deal is not negotiated, the UK would have to revert to WTO trade rules If a ‘soft exit’ trade deal is not negotiated, the UK would have to revert to World Trade Organization (WTO) trade rules, which means tariffs on trade between the UK and the EU, says IHS Markit. There are five British-based access-control and intruder-alarm vendors supplying the European market in significant quantity – each with revenue exceeding $10 million. IHS Markit estimates these companies combined account for less than 10 percent of total European, Middle-Eastern and African (EMEA) market revenues for both industries.  Uncertain future of UK security marketplace Asset protection specialist VPS Security Services has warned that the ongoing Brexit saga will likely lead to a rise in vacant commercial and residential properties as developers and investors are more reluctant to move forward with their UK real estate strategies. Seemingly endless machinations and shifting proposals are making the eventual outcome of Brexit very much a guessing game. Uncertainty translates into a volatile and changing outlook, and the eventual impact on the broader economy is an open question. As a reflection of that economy, the security marketplace will inevitably feel the economic impact, too, not to mention the new security challenges likely to ensue.