One of G4S’s customer is a well-known e-commerce company. This company has headquarters in Argentina and operations in many countries, including Mexico, Brazil, Dominican Republic and several other Latin American countries. The company’s e-commerce platform has had over 170 million visitors, demonstrating the high level of success it has seen in its industry. Like most online shopping businesses, the customer saw an influx of sales due to in-person business closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. What’s more, when Black Friday was quickly approaching, the customer recognised there was a major opportunity for a large sales volume. However, with its current scale, it would be unable to handle this influx of business. Therefore, it opted to open a few new fulfillment centres to add the extra capacity it would require.

The major challenge ahead was to get these centres open in time for Black Friday and the company needed a partner to install electronic security systems in these new fulfillment centres. The customer had originally decided to contract with multiple companies, with the belief it could more easily meet its deadlines. However, when one of its security vendors could not meet the deadline, the customer turned to G4S to take over security installation in the new centres.

THE GOALS

There was one primary, critical goal: to get fulfillment centres secured and open in time for the fast-approaching Black Friday deadline. As the deadline was urgent, G4S would be responsible for working on installations at all fulfillment centres at the same time.

The customer also stressed the importance of a security partner having a technical team certified to work with the equipment manufacturers that the customer had already previously approved and accepted. This added another restriction that was difficult for competitors to meet, but fortunately, G4S’s team has the proper certifications to install the exact equipment the customer required.

THE SOLUTION

G4S simultaneously installed systems in all three of the customer’s new fulfillment centres. Without working on all the projects at the same time, there would be no possible way to have the centres ready by the deadline. This meant multiple teams being deployed, which G4S was able to do by leveraging its extensive team of technicians with the necessary expertise.

The system itself had three main components:

• CCTV system
• Access control
• Intrusion alarm systems

G4S was able to find all of the necessary components to meet the customer’s restricted list of approved manufacturers. In total, the equipment installation across all three centres included approximately 1,500 high-tech video cameras for the CCTV systems. G4S also installed access control and intrusion alarm equipment that consisted of more than 1,200 sensors.

In order to have the three centres ready to open by the deadline, G4S rolled out the systems in phases. The components that were a critical requirement for opening the fulfillment centres were installed during phase one. These were classified as essential items, and thus the focus was on completing this first phase in all three centres before moving on to the next phase in any single centre. After phase one was complete, the additional equipment was installed.

THE RESULTS

Due to the simultaneous installations and phased rollout plan, G4S was able to meet the customer’s tight deadline. The fulfillment centres were ready to open in time for Black Friday and the additional components were successfully installed afterward.

The project went smoothly due to the close monitoring of the project’s progress. It was vital for G4S to meet the customer’s requirements, so any issues that management identified as having the potential to derail or slow down the project were immediately reported and corrected. This ensured all went according to plan.

G4S has earned a glowing reputation with the customer and continues to work on additional projects as the company expands and upgrades.