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There isn't a great deal that Morten Ronning doesn't know about the security business. Having begun his career at Securitas Security Services back in 1985 as an officer and then supervisor – "You really learn the business that way... How to communicate with officers and appreciate their daily challenges" – Ronning quickly moved up the ranks in the company's Stavanger operation, eventually assuming responsibility for branch operations throughout this entire region on the western coast of his native Norway.

In 1995, Ronning was seconded to Paris, where Securitas – currently world leader in the private security market – had bought a company named Protectas. "My primary role was to bring the Securitas culture to the Protectas operation," adds Ronning.

You can't escape that Securitas culture. Certainly not at their Lower Richmond Road offices in London, at any rate. The company abides by three core values – Integrity, Vigilance and Helpfulness – and those very words are evidenced in full at every opportunity. Whether they be atop the Market Matrix poster displayed in the main reception area, inside the pages of the Securitas Magazine or adorning the quaint wooden figurines that demonstrate the contents of 'The Toolbox' (which encapsulates the building blocks of Securitas' protection philosophy) in the main training room.

Not surprisingly, Ronning is keen to extol the virtues of that culture.

"Our first rule is that we're focusing on security, and only security. No cleaning contracts. No catering. Only security," states Ronning in assertive tones. "The second rule is that, once you have defined your product or service, you must know where you want to sell it, and the dynamics of the market you're aiming to sell into."

At this juncture, Ronning turns to the aforementioned Market Matrix. Banking, retail, process industries and transport/distribution are Securitas' major business areas, it seems, with traditional contracts in the Government sector also playing their part.

"Once you understand the services you can offer, as well as the market and the value chain within it, you can then focus on your own organisation," comments Ronning, "putting the building blocks in place for efficient service delivery to the client." Indeed, that very task is the latest and ongoing challenge for this astute 43-year-old professional who, in October 2002, was relocated to become managing director for Securitas in the UK and Ireland. His mission? To effectively turn the business around.

"We had lost a fair amount of ground and revenue in the UK, and there was a definite need to 'fix' the operation here," states Ronning. He's not wrong. A turnover of £67 million at the tail end of 2001 had been reduced to £59 million by close of play in December 2002, while operating losses posted in the same month stood at £2.7 million. Not a very happy state of affairs, it must be said.

Organisation and operation
According to Ronning, the UK business had suffered from the wrong kind of organisation "with people working in the wrong roles for them". There was a nagging feeling that the Securitas business wasn't that well recognised among the end user fraternity, with much of the client contact emanating from rather impersonal e-mails.

"We weren't getting out there and talking to the customers," urges Ronning. "There was a pressing need to inform the client base about what we could offer them."

The Securitas method of organising the business necessarily means a completely flat structure. One of Ronning's first tasks was to dispose of the "big Head Office" culture that had arisen, making the business more regionally-focused with line managers responsible for their own areas.

"People cocooned in Head Offices tend to lose sight of what the business is all about," he states. "In practice, managers who hide away will take the wrong decisions and end up interfering in the smooth running of the business more than they support it. To some extent at least, that was the sort of culture I found when I first came here. It's to their great credit that the existing managers bought into our new way of thinking, and have really worked hard to take the business forward."

Ronning continues: "Like any other security company, Securitas is a business and not a charity. If you want to be in control of your own destiny then you have to appoint people across the length and breadth of the country who are capable of assuming direct responsibility for their own local business. That's a simple way to run a business, but it's also a tough way to run a business. As the managing director, you must relate directly to a lot of different people. And you must have complete trust in them."

Before you can bestow responsibility, you must make sure the members of your security team are trained to accept it. Ronning is well aware of this, and it's precisely the reason why he spent "much of the first year in the UK" explaining the Securitas philosophy (ingrained since the company was founded in Sweden in 1934) to all. "How are you going to run a profit centre? How are you going to hit budget? What's the best way to communicate internally and with the outside world? These are fundamental questions that have to be addressed from the outset," suggests Ronning.

There’s far too much emphasis on volume [in the UK]. That elephantine disease. It’s far better for contractors to grow slowly by taking on commitments whereby they can actually earn money and reinvest to create a healthy, stable private security business

There must be something in his approach to doing business because, by 2003, Securitas' UK operation had returned to the black (a fact confirmed by chief executive officer Thomas Berglund at last month's Annual Director's Report presentation and meeting).

"To my mind, I'd much rather enjoy revenues of, say, £100 million and earn 6% rather than £200 million and earn a mere 1%," he adds. "There's far too much emphasis on volume here. That elephantine disease. One that I don't support at all. It's far better for contractors to grow slowly by taking on commitments whereby they can actually earn money and reinvest to create a healthy, stable private security business. Market share stands for something, but it doesn't tell you about the quality of service delivery which is absolutely key as far as the clients are concerned."

Learning from the past
Born in Farsund – a "little town in the southern part of Norway" – Ronning grew up with military influences all around him.

"My father was an officer in the army," states Ronning rather proudly. "He really wanted me to follow in his footsteps, and I ended up doing just that for a time." Six years, in fact, from 1979 through to 1985. At least one year of which was compulsory as conscription was very much the order of the day.

During his military sojourn, Ronning attended something similar to university. The Norwegian equivalent of the Sandhurst Military Academy was where he gained his education. "That was great fun!" he recalls. "As a cadet, I was being paid while I was taught." Upon graduating as a lieutenant, Ronning was given a two-year secondment as a platoon commander in the military police, but at the end of this nonetheless formative period he decided that long term life in the military wasn't for him.

"To be continually moved around in Norway, particularly if you were posted to one of the harsher northern regions, wasn't that tempting a prospect," adds Ronning, at which point a grimace spreads across his friendly face. So what could he possibly do next?

His move into the security sector wasn't a conscious decision at all. Rather, Ronning "needed something to do" and, as luck would have it, he stumbled upon an advert in his local Stavanger newspaper where Securitas just happened to be advertising some newly-created positions.

"I knew that I liked working with people," he says, "and that security was very much a people-focused industry. Having learned how to manage as a raw recruit in the army, I felt that there was some unfinished business to be concluded. I was determined to become a manager of some description."

When he first joined the private sector's ranks, the state of the industry in Norway was "more or less the same" as it is now in the UK, characterised by low pay, a very poor profile and a lack of any real recognition. A far cry from the situation pertaining today in the Scandinavian nations, where 17 days of basic training is the norm and the average charge-out fees for security officers in a major Norwegian or Swedish city show typical rates of over £20 an hour compared with London's £10.

"You can expect to add another 20% on top of those Scandinavian rates if officers are working nights, and anything up to 40% extra for weekend shifts," states Ronning.

Surprisingly, only Securitas makes any real money in the Norwegian market, with the rest of the major players there – Group 4 Falck, Hafslund and VaktService – running at a loss or at best returning a small profit. "We like to think matters are so different in the UK, but in several respects that simply isn't true," adds Ronning.

Scandinavia versus the UK
Nonetheless, one wonders why such major discrepancies in the delivery of security remain between Ronning's birthplace and home shores. Is it because security as a discipline is more highly valued in Scandinavia? Interestingly, Ronning feels it's largely down to licensing and regulation in the Scandinavian states which began in the mid-to-late 1980s. Having drawn a detailed chart on the main training room's revolving scripture board (depicting the UK, middle European and Scandinavian markets), a sharply-dressed Ronning begins to expand upon his theories.

We have to be able to offer our staff better quality, more rounded training and decent salaries in line with their qualifications and achievements. We must also work closely with our customers to better satisfy their security needs

"When Security Industry Authority (SIA) licensing begins," he comments, "the cost of guarding is going to rise. We all know that. What many of us suspect is that clients are going to turn to us and say they'll not pick up the tab for that. If that's the case, you're then back to Square One. You'll be in the business of providing 'arms and legs' on site which pass for a security solution. True, contractors could reduce the number of guarding hours, but that wouldn't realise any profit for reinvestment in training. That's far from a win-win situation."

Quite rightly, Ronning feels security is not a career if "people are sitting there watching the back doors of a store every night of the week. We have to make the job interesting. One that will provide a good living. The way forward is to have less officers on site of better quality, and deliver a true security solution that meshes systems provision with manned guarding."

A view that's amply demonstrated in the latest Securitas Magazine, in fact, which contains an article depicting a fictitious brewery in northern Europe where monthly costs have been lowered for the client thanks to efficient systems deployment.

By his own admission, Ronning is a very direct person. "A typical Scandinavian, if you like!" He's also demanding. The kind of man that wants things to happen yesterday. A trusting individual, he's keen to see that faith rewarded with loyalty from the members of his own team. "When I was country president of Securitas in Norway between 1999 and early 2002," opines Ronning, "the role was really all about creating a team ethic, and a spirit to go with that. It was about picking the right people and working together towards common goals."

The results speak for themselves. Ronning's legacy is that, for the past two years, the Norwegian operation has been the most efficient company in the Securitas group. "Although our philosophy is that each nation in which Securitas operates should have its own country president, I should stress that what has been going on in the UK is therefore more of the exception rather than the rule."

Removing negative perceptions
There are sound arguments to suggest that many UK contractors' focus on volume or market share is somewhat misplaced. The sector remains underdeveloped – the hope being that SIA regulation will help to rectify that state of affairs – but Ronning is undeterred.

"It's only too easy to over-exaggerate and say that the industry is terminally ill, and the market difficult. Often, that's a bad excuse for not performing well yourself. Licensing will not fix everything for the industry. Nor can the SIA or the British Security Industry Association be expected to find all the answers. They are enablers for us, but it's the contractors who must take ownership of regulation and act responsibly. You cannot succeed at anything if you continue to harbour negative perceptions." Strong words... but strong words of this ilk are what's needed just now.

Ronning feels the SIA is "working well" on behalf of the industry at large, in turn "doing all the right things and making all the right noises." That said, he stresses that regulators ensconced at 50 Broadway cannot be expected to promote price increases to the industry's client base on their own. "That's a job for the contractors," said Ronning, "and it's one they must tackle head on."

In the wake of licensing comes the wider police family, of course, which Ronning believes to be a sound and workable idea. "There's a definite opportunity for us to create something worthwhile," he suggests. "What we're really talking about here is providing a public service, so it stands to reason that we cannot possibly contemplate sending security officers out on to the streets before they've had rigorous and extensive training. Neither do we want bodybuilders on the scene. We want people with intelligence who can think rationally and handle conflict situations with calm and assuredness."

For many years, practitioners have fought over who's to blame for the guarding industry's woes – less scrupulous contractors (for providing poor quality services which don't deliver on bold and attractive tender promises) or the clients, many of whom are seemingly unwilling to pay a good price for the right security service. In Ronning's view, the answer to that particular conundrum rather depends upon the market sector under consideration.

"Whenever the responsibility for signing off a security contract sits in the Purchasing Department," urges Ronning, "it usually becomes a cost-laden exercise. If the contractor can get close to the direct customer, and that should be the aim, then the end user will usually pay a higher price for a better service. In-house security managers will always campaign for more funds, and so they should, but in a similar vein the powers-that-be will always attempt to reduce costs and claim that bonuses are riding on this being done. That remains a fundamental problem in-house practitioners simply have to overcome."

Adopting FM approaches
It's usually the case that if a client organisation adopts the facilities management (FM)-style approach to running its tendered contracts, security will be treated as a commodity. And yet security is much, much more than that. Indeed, it's arguably the most important element of a company's budgetary spend in any one year.

"Risk should never be measured in pounds and pence," chips in Ronning, "although it has been for far too long now. That's why many in the UK are into reactive rather than pro-active security provision."

Ronning – whose main ambition is to "really put Securitas on the map in the UK", growing the business organically by 15% per annum – firmly believes that security companies can only succeed if they have the courage of their convictions and become stubborn over issues like contract pricing. "If we don't exhibit such qualities we'll simply carry on doing what we did yesterday ad infinitum. That's not development. It's stagnation."

For development to occur, Ronning suggests that the major players in the UK market have to take ownership of Best Practice.

"We must turn away from 'arms and legs' selling and provide true security solutions. And contractors must stop this practise of giving clients a full cost breakdown of a contract when they ask to see one, complete with the security company's profit on the job. In what other industry does the purchaser have the right to see such information? Would a car dealer tell you what profit they're making when they sell you a new vehicle? I think we all know the answer to that one." Fair comment.

What of the future for Securitas Security Services in the UK and its current managing director? Just like any other reputable contractor, Securitas will soon have a much reduced labour pool from which to select its operatives once licensing has bitten deep. The companies that can stay ahead of that situation by first spotting potential and then rewarding it through demonstrable career progression will be the ones to take the industry forward.

"That's completely correct," adds Ronning. "We have to be able to offer our staff better quality, more rounded training and decent salaries in line with their qualifications and achievements. We must also work closely with our customers to better satisfy their security needs. No security company in this country has the kind of financial strength that would allow them to subsume the cost of licensing, though. That's fact, and clients must realise this."

Ronning is quick to point out that Securitas will continue to develop its UK business at its own pace, and he isn't afraid of any potential 'fall-out' from the merger of Group 4 Falck and Securicor Security Services.