INDUSTRY FOCUS: SECURITY

industry as the world shifts to battery technology and storage concepts, new and existing mines will require risk support, and GardaWorld is very active in this space. And actionable information is key – understanding operating environments pre-emptively, to be able to react in good time.

“West Africa is where we are conspicuously absent and we should be more present in the main markets there,” admits Westmacott. “The challenge is that the individual markets are much smaller from a security standpoint. Côte d’Ivoire is probably the most attractive but it is still quite a small market and it is tough to build material scale. There is also the challenge of language and culture, which is significant when getting people to work together.”

Nurturing the team culture –across 40,000 people in Africa and 132,000 people around the world – is an immensely challenging task, and growing organically in the area will take significant time. Westmacott is busy creating partnerships and foundations from which to grow.

“It is a matter of time,” he states. “You either go in and open an office, put a competent team in place, and wait until you have something that is worth talking about. Or, you can buy a company and take on the challenge of reformatting it. Or, you can go into certain projects with a consultancy capability and partner with a local company which makes you less about providing guards on a gate and more about value added service provision. We are doing quite a lot of that in West Africa, on mines and critical infrastructure.”

According to Fitch subsidiary BMI, West Africa is set to become a mining powerhouse, with vast untapped mineral resources and a robust project pipeline. GardaWorld is proven in this space, deploying a multitude of solutions across various operations in SSA. “I’m a big believer in the mining sector and I think there is a big opportunity there. Critical infrastructure solutions – ports, pipelines, telecoms, data centres – there is significant opportunity for us in that area.”

In the medium-term future, digital surveillance will become the gold standard for security firms genuine about industry leadership. SOCMINT can have a material impact on a company’s ability to deliver meaningful value, and this is where Westmacott sees big growth in a region characterised by fast technology adoption.

He says SOCMINT, especially when combined with growing AI capability, can provide real answers to questions from clients around ‘what are you going to do about it’.

“Increasingly, a lot of this is open-source. Seeing what people are chatting about on social media platforms is so useful, it’s just a case of being able to find the relevant data, distil it, and make it useful. Marrying that with a response on the ground can make for a hugely impactful process.”

With these growth opportunities comes more progress and more success for GardaWorld, its people, its stakeholders, and the communities it calls home. For Westmacott, taking advantage of changing markets boils down to successfully building relationships - something he has been doing successfully for two decades.

“I am very optimistic. It is not easy – there are constant challenges. Fundamentally, I believe that there is a major outsourced opportunity in the markets we serve, and we have the conviction that quality will prevail. Long-term, we are confident you must have a great team that can build relationships – security is about trust, and if you can do what you say then you are 90% there.”

Africa’s population will double by 2050. SSA population is growing by 2.7% annually, faster than south Asia and Latin America. Infrastructure, corporate expansion, global connectivity, business operations, and investment and funding will follow this growth, and that will result in a need for risk mitigation, protection, and advanced security services. Here, GardaWorld is leading thanks to comprehensive adoption of shared values - integrity, trust, vigilance, respect.

Content sponsored by GardaWorld Africa