How Risk 360 technology
is helping business security in Africa
In Africa, as in other parts of the world, Risk 360 is giving our customers real-time information to reduce the threats they face and optimise their resources. It’s taking our service beyond what our clients thought was possible, and helping to improve the international reputation for doing business in Africa.
21 Jan 2021
In a secure control room located in the heart of Africa, a team of G4S analysts pour through data looking for clues to what might be about to happen. Their mission - to get inside the mind of a criminal, and stop their crimes before they take place.
It might sound like the plot of Steven Spielberg’s movie Minority Report, but in reality what G4S is rolling out across Africa is a technology that relies not on artificial intelligence, but on the analysis of thousands of data sets. It’s a technology system that aids human intelligence, rather than imitating it.
Named Risk 360, this proprietary software is helping G4S in Africa to keep its clients safe and secure more effectively than ever before.
Shaun De Koker, G4S National Manager for Projects in Africa, tells us more…
Risk 360 has given us the opportunity to bring market leading security technology to Africa. Clients see the value it adds to their business and its market position as the only truly integrated solution. It’s taken the customer relationship from that of a service provider to being a risk partner, and an influential part of a client's operations. It moves our customers away from purchasing security as a commodity, and to start thinking of it as a combination of security solutions designed to manage risks and enhance value for our customers.
Risk 360 is transforming our service, not by replacing personnel with cameras or robots, but by helping our people to work in a more informed and effective way.
The system works by creating a central repository for information gathered from sites, for example occurrence reports, photos, videos, tracking locations and sensor alerts, together with monitoring and response capability, and analyses all this data to give real-time management information and operational insights.
It gives G4S and its clients one consolidated platform from which they can manage, investigate and analyse all their data, to stay one step ahead of the threats.
This allows for more focused deployment of resources; for instance by identifying over time the profile of sites that may be at risk or the times at which particular locations may be more prone to threats.
For example with one customer, the system was able to correlate the precise day and time of the week their delivery trucks were most likely to be attacked, and which routes they travelled on that were most susceptible, allowing changes and risk mitigation measures to be put in place that resulted in a significant drop in attacks.
For another client, the system picked up a correlation between the number of incidents they were experiencing and the phases of the moon - on nights where there was a full moon the number of incidents decreased due to the amount of light on site. With this insight, we were able to bring a solution to the customer with strategically placed lighting and varying levels of patrols, which resulted in a marked decrease in incidents.
For a high profile embassy client it’s the comprehensive reporting functionality of Risk 360 they find incredibly useful. Being able to access weekly and monthly reports that show a complete overview of their entire operations at the click of a button has saved them a huge amount of time and resource.
The system can also create risk heat maps - a helicopter view of where incidents are taking place. So for example if Customer A has a violent incident at a certain location and time, the system will immediately factor this into its assessments for Customer B and advise changes to mitigate the risk, and so on.
The beauty of the system is that it can be fully integrated into a clients existing IT - we work with what they already have and we don’t have any preconditions for the systems they need to use. This saves on costs for the client, as they are not required to replace or upgrade any of their existing systems.
80% of the African countries G4S operates in have implemented Risk 360, and we are seeing great interest from clients across the continent eager to hear how the system can benefit their operations.
To find out more about Risk 360 in Africa please register your interest by emailing academy@africa.g4s.com
Risk 360 has given us the opportunity to bring market leading security technology to Africa. Clients see the value it adds to their business and its market position as the only truly integrated solution. It’s taken the customer relationship from that of a service provider to being a risk partner, and an influential part of a client's operations. It moves our customers away from purchasing security as a commodity, and to start thinking of it as a combination of security solutions designed to manage risks and enhance value for our customers.
Risk 360 is transforming our service, not by replacing personnel with cameras or robots, but by helping our people to work in a more informed and effective way.
The system works by creating a central repository for information gathered from sites, for example occurrence reports, photos, videos, tracking locations and sensor alerts, together with monitoring and response capability, and analyses all this data to give real-time management information and operational insights.
It gives G4S and its clients one consolidated platform from which they can manage, investigate and analyse all their data, to stay one step ahead of the threats.
This allows for more focused deployment of resources; for instance by identifying over time the profile of sites that may be at risk or the times at which particular locations may be more prone to threats.
For example with one customer, the system was able to correlate the precise day and time of the week their delivery trucks were most likely to be attacked, and which routes they travelled on that were most susceptible, allowing changes and risk mitigation measures to be put in place that resulted in a significant drop in attacks.
For another client, the system picked up a correlation between the number of incidents they were experiencing and the phases of the moon - on nights where there was a full moon the number of incidents decreased due to the amount of light on site. With this insight, we were able to bring a solution to the customer with strategically placed lighting and varying levels of patrols, which resulted in a marked decrease in incidents.
For a high profile embassy client it’s the comprehensive reporting functionality of Risk 360 they find incredibly useful. Being able to access weekly and monthly reports that show a complete overview of their entire operations at the click of a button has saved them a huge amount of time and resource.
The system can also create risk heat maps - a helicopter view of where incidents are taking place. So for example if Customer A has a violent incident at a certain location and time, the system will immediately factor this into its assessments for Customer B and advise changes to mitigate the risk, and so on.
The beauty of the system is that it can be fully integrated into a clients existing IT - we work with what they already have and we don’t have any preconditions for the systems they need to use. This saves on costs for the client, as they are not required to replace or upgrade any of their existing systems.
80% of the African countries G4S operates in have implemented Risk 360, and we are seeing great interest from clients across the continent eager to hear how the system can benefit their operations.
To find out more about Risk 360 in Africa please register your interest by emailing academy@africa.g4s.com