Is there a new cluster emerging in the security sphere?

Transport company without its own fleet?!

Construction company without its own construction equipment?!

Security company without its own security guards?!

Cellular operator without its own cell tower infrastructure?!

At first glance, all of the above seem absurd. It can't be! However, consider the following:

• "Beeline owner will sell cell towers in Russia for $970 million" (www.rbc.ru 06.09.2021);
• Three largest telecom operators in Russia simultaneously started selling their tower infrastructure;
• International telecommunication company Orange is selling its towers."

According to unconfirmed data, Moldovan towers are also being sold.

Thus, at first glance, the absurd assumption holds true. And the reasons are very simple: COST OPTIMIZATION. Against this backdrop, envisioning a transport or construction company without its own fleet no longer seems illogical. And a security company without security guards? – At first glance, it's definitely unthinkable. However, let's delve into the history and evolution of technical security services.

In the early stages, technical security services were provided based on responsive action to a single event – alarm status. Meaning, the object could be in two discrete states: alarm state and rest state. There was also a third state – technological: loss of communication with the protected object, or malfunction.

Undoubtedly, in such a "scientific-technical" landscape, the role of humans was significant. Operational staff had to arrive at the scene and try to understand, according to their instructions, the likelihood of unlawful events. In this situation, there was an unconditional need to respond to alarm signals. And responses were not only to alarm events but also for familiarization with the object, understanding its features, and sharing "experience" in working with the object. Hence, the significance of the human factor was extremely high.

The development of technical security means allows for a more detailed picture of what is happening at the object, specifically based on sensor events. In this case, one can more confidently understand whether the security object has been invaded or if the event is a technical glitch where responding is unnecessary.

The capabilities of object-based technical security means allow the duty operator to track the movement of intruders on the object and literally guide the operational group personnel along the intruder's path. The state of modern control panel software allows, during alarm processing at the object, to connect an operational service employee in full access mode to the data received at the remote observation panel.

Thus, it must be acknowledged that due to the rapidly increasing awareness of the remote operator, who is the transmitting link of the technical security service, the significance of the response operational service personnel as information bearers about the object is diminishing, and the requirements for the personnel as anti-criminal analysts are decreasing.

An objective picture of complete detachment of the operational service personnel from the objects arises. A certain list of objects is the legal responsibility of the security operator. The task of the security operator is to ensure the security of entrusted objects with the available tools. Moreover, reducing the cost of responding – referring to both the frequency of responses and the expenses for maintaining response team members – will directly enhance the financial stability and profitability of the enterprise. And here, I consider it timely to return to the beginning of the exposition.

We started with cell towers of cellular operators. Towers are one of the tools for conducting business, a very specific segment not overly filled with engineering components. Operational group personnel and transportation components, analogous to towers, are one of the tools for conducting security business. Like towers, this is a highly specific business segment.

In business, avalanche-like trends are very common. This occurs when a company takes certain steps that turn out to be successful. More often than not, these are actions that lead either to reducing operational costs or to introducing a new service, resulting in higher profits for the company. All players in this market sector very quickly follow the path of this company.

If we take the total number of objects, various security enterprises, protected in the municipality, and divide them by the number of operational groups of various security companies, it is not difficult to see that the principle of reasonable sufficiency is being violated. This means that small enterprises may have a shortage of operational groups, while large ones may have an excess. The trend of small enterprises abandoning their own operational groups and purchasing this service from larger ones has already reached its peak. But business logic always follows the laws of reducing the cost of the service, and there is still room to reduce the cost. The next step towards reducing the cost of security services is to separate the response service into a separate cluster. There are objective prerequisites for this, not only in the excess of operational groups overall but also in the fact that small enterprises are opting to outsource response services from larger companies due to the need to save costs without experiencing deep satisfaction. Outsourcing this service from a larger enterprise incurs reputational losses for small enterprises and, conversely, advertises large enterprises, making their response cluster economically more profitable. Through such contracts, small enterprises play into the hands of their competitors. If we suppose that tomorrow a security operator will emerge who will exclusively provide response services, then even with the same price for this service (and there is room to reduce it), small enterprises will buy this service from an independent operator.

We await further developments…