Private security services have become one of the most productive and prosperous niches in Mexico and the world. In our country, generates one million jobs and contributes close to 2% of GDP. However, like all industries, it also has great challenges: new competitors are constantly added to the market and the main players have set a fast and sustained pace of innovation.
Alejandro Desfassiaux, president of Grupo Multisistemas de Seguridad Industrial and pioneering expert in private security in Mexico, talks about the challenges of an important industry for the country’s competitiveness and growth, at a time when insecurity has been unleashed.
Technology and trained talent
AN: Alejandro, what is your expectation of the private security industry and market for the following year?
I believe that the market will continue to face the great challenge of informal organizations. 98% of the private security sector in our country is made up of “duckling” companies, who earn very cheap, without benefits for their workers and pay very low wages. That makes their turnover very high and the quality of their services very bad. The guards are dirty and do not receive quality training.
Many clients prefer these types of companies because they are cheap, without realizing that it is more expensive to have a cheap guard, who provides poor security service and does not reduce their losses.
Fortunately, the new General Private Security Law. I estimate that it will be for this end of the year or beginning of the next. The new legislation will establish the minimum rules and the distribution of powers regarding the provision of private security services in Mexico. That is to say, will seek that companies pay their taxes in full, provide full benefits and do a more professional job. I believe that this law will help the sector become more formal and serious.
Grupo Multisistemas has always operated with high quality standards, so we welcome the new legislation.
AN: What plans does Multisistemas have for 2023?
The business sector, to which we belong as an organization, is barely recovering from the change of federal government and the pandemic. Since before COVID-19, many companies had already left Mexico, and the health emergency was the coup de grace for others, who could not bear the impact of the crisis. We managed to get ahead, thanks to the fact that we did a great financial and planning job, and since we inaugurated our Millennium National Monitoring Center (C5) in 2019, we were able to automate our services very quickly at the national level. By automating 98% of our processes, we save money on administrative costs and improve customer service. However, we lost 20-30% of our strength status.
We estimate that it will not be until 2025 that we will recover the state of strength that we had before the current administration and COVID. Unfortunately, I don’t see a quick recovery of the world economy. What helps us as a company is that we have the best human resources, the best technology and the best return on investment. Our traditional clients continue to be with us, as they see us as partners in their economic recovery, because we help them reduce losses.
Before this six-year term and the pandemic, we were growing between 9 and 10% per year. During the pandemic we decreased and today we have a 3% recoveryagainst last year.
LA REVISTA: Ecosystem and infrastructure will promote digital payments in Mexico: Visa
For the following year we will continue to focus on having the best human resources and the best technology. We are the security company with the lowest turnover rate nationwide (2% per year). At the management level, our turnover rate is 0.5%. That allows us to retrain and develop higher quality programs, because our people are already well trained and have a lot of experience. The challenge we have is to attract young people.
We are a company with a lot of discipline, order and values, and many young people do not agree with this culture. But when they enter with us and know the benefits that this order and discipline brings to their personal lives and they feel part of the family that we are, they decide to stay with us.
MORE NEWS:
High level Team of young journalists whose objective is to explain the most relevant business, economic and financial news. We are passionate about telling stories and believe in citizen and service journalism.
