“Treat your staff well and you can expect a service to the end user that’s second to none. Managers must always respond promptly to officers’ problems. After all, that’s how I expect my officers to behave when snags arise on site. Security is a people business. We should never lose sight of that fact.”
Clearly, Jonathan Levine is a firm believer in ‘open door’-style management. And it’s obviously working for him. Since leading a successful management buy-out back in 1998, First Security’s incisive managing director has seen the company’s turnover more than double – from GB pound 14 million to a projected GB pound 35.5 million come the end of this year. Outside of the successful dot.coms, First is now one of the UK’s fastest growing businesses.
All well and good, but the cynics out there – including the managing directors of smaller contractors, whose companies are struggling in what is a cutthroat marketplace – will claim that this is yet another example of profits being placed before people. In First Security’s case, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Putting his money where his mouth is, Levine has just ploughed a vast sum of cash back into the business by procuring a new training facility for First’s 2,000-plus officers.
Located a stone’s throw from First Security’s Myddelton Square offices in north London, the Caledonia House training suite on Pentonville Road is acting as the fulcrum for the company’s training courses – from induction courses and education in customer care through to first aid and supervisor-level tuition. “I like to think of this as a commitment not just to growing the business,” stresses Levine, “but also one that is firmly rooted in providing ‘best-in-class’ training for our officers. In turn, they can then provide the very best service to our clients.”
That is an issue of prime concern to Levine, an erudite professional who has deliberately positioned his company at the high end of the security industry, offering manned guarding, keyholding, mobile patrolling, car park monitoring and front-of-house/reception services to clients primarily in the City and London’s West End.
A solid reputation built up over recent years on contracts for blue chip clients including LIFFE, HSBC, the Royal Opera House, the DTi and The Financial Times has helped the mobile patrol and keyholding side of the business grow by 50%, while positive ‘word of mouth’ has just won the guarding contracts for the European Bank and 60 Prudential sites in the West End. This is the story of a localised company, then, that has grown organically – not by being acquisitive.
Levine’s emphasis on training – ALL new personnel complete a basic 62-hour tuition programme, and are encouraged to seek formal qualifications including City & Guilds and NVQs – has been a shrewd move. The majority of officers on the company’s books have completed between five and ten years service with First, which is much higher than the industry average. Levine has instigated a ‘Security Officer of the Year Awards’ programme to incentivise his staff, and to this day he still makes regular site visits every week to check on officers’ welfare.
“As a managing director you need to stay close to what’s really going on,” says Levine. “I’ve always been heavily involved in the operational side of the business, getting out and about, meeting the troops and encouraging them to promote best practice.”
The impression remains that Levine would regularly call on each and every one of First’s 300-plus contracts if he had the time.
Learning by experience
Yorkshire born and bred, in the formative years Levine made the short journey from his home near Harrogate to Leeds University to study for a degree in economics and management. A deliberate move? “Yes,” urges Levine. “I was looking to go into business, but at that time I hadn’t even considered security.”
The business bug had bitten many years earlier courtesy of his father, who worked in the clothing industry. The young Levine desperately wanted to follow in the paternal footsteps, but cheap Japanese clothing imports began to flood the UK and Levine Senior decided to sell what was a thriving business.
Feted to reassess his priorities in the short term, the fresh-faced Honours graduate became a management trainee at Marks & Spencer back in 1970. “That gave me a good grounding,” adds Levine. “I was moved around from store-to-store, taking in Bradford, Huddersfield, Manchester and Stockport, and held a variety of management roles.”
Eventually, though, seven years of seemingly constant upheaval began to take its toll. Levine left for pastures new at The Ryman Group of Companies until – in 1986 – he was approached by Brian Kingham of the Reliance Group to make a new career for himself in the private security sector.
Levine held several posts at Reliance, regional board director and south east divisional director among them. He was also responsible for setting up the company’s aviation division. “It was a very happy ten years,” suggests Levine. “I learned my trade at Reliance. Margin control and cash collection were especially prominent features that I had to get to grips with as managing director of my own division.”
And get to grips with them he did. So much so that the ‘Big Boys’ – Securicor and Group 4 – came calling with a view to prising Levine away from the Kingham-inspired empire that was now turning over something in the region of GB pound 200 million. “At that time I began to wonder if I couldn’t use the skills I’d learned to run my own outfit,” adds Levine.
By pure coincidence, Dorian Nineberg (then managing director of First Security) and Orbis chief executive Trevor Brentnall came to Levine with a proposition. “Dorian wanted to leave. Orbis plc [First’s parent company for the four years prior to 1998] was looking into the property protection business to find synergies between that and manned guarding. This was a new challenge that appealed to me.”
Within a year of Levine joining, Brentnall wanted to sell up and concentrate on the electronic security side of the Orbis business. “Trevor suggested I go it alone, and buy First Security for myself,” states Levine. “The figure being quoted was GB pound 9 million. Not an insubstantial sum, and one that I couldn’t hope to shoulder alone.” Bringing his extensive business acumen to the fore, the shrewd Levine teamed up with venture capitalist 3i and the Royal Bank of Scotland and, after five long months of painstaking negotiations, Levine led the aforementioned management buy-out that was completed on 1 May 1998.
“We have since created a strong niche for ourselves,” continues Levine. “I make sure that I, along with the other senior managers here, remain closely involved with all of our major customers. My teams live and die by what they do.” Such commitment will be music to the ears of end users – and Levine remains convinced about the right way forward for those clients. “Our experience has taught us that, although technological advance is producing ever-more effective electronic systems, manned guarding must remain an essential factor in the overall security strategy for any high profile site.”
Likely effects of legislation
Like a good many security company directors, Jonathan Levine is openly concerned about the likely effects of legislation (in the form of the Working Time Directive) and, of course, regulation – courtesy of the Private Security Industry Act 2001.
“They’re talking about a licensing cost per officer of between GB pound 30 and GB pound 50,” adds Levine. “OK, but let me tell you what we’re already up against. Next year, congestion charges are being enforced in London. That’s going to cost us another GB pound 40,000 each year now. When it comes to the licensing, there will be an element of absorbtion by the contractor. Indeed, we might have to absorb all of that cost. For us, we’re looking at over GB pound 100,000. That will be a bitter pill to swallow.”
Levine believes that Molly Meacher and John Saunders (chair and chief executive respectively of the Security Industry Authority) will not be disadvantaged because they don’t possess a background in the sector. That said, he adds an important rider. “They must get out and about as much as they can, canvassing the views of the industry and its clients and not solely the major trade associations.”
Then there’s the derogation on the Working Time Directive, the effects of which will bite hard in 2003. “We have been doing our best to comply with the 48-hour working week, but I suspect the Government might actually sit on the fence this time around,” claims a stern-faced Levine.
He feels that, to make up the shortage in manpower caused by the Directive and licensing – the latest estimates suggest that 25% of current industry employees will not pass the licensing tests – the private sector will have to look ‘outside the box’, and beyond the traditional route that says only ex-military and ex-police should be employed in the industry.
“I came into security from a retail background, and it has never been a problem. We need to continue to attract graduates from a host of different disciplines. That’s the way forward,” urges Levine.
As far as David Blunkett’s far-reaching plans for police reform are concerned, Levine remains a tad sceptical on the push for a wider police family. “The idea behind Community Support Officers in the Metropolitan Police’s territories is OK up to a point, but the training must be right,” opines Levine forcefully.
That said, Levine is fully supportive of the British Security Industry Association’s (BSIA) all-new Police and Public Services Section (News, SMT, June 2002, p8). “I’m very impressed with what David Cowden has achieved during his tenure as Association chairman,” says Levine. “He is trying to progress the industry in a new and different way.”
Levine adds: “One of the problems is that everyone seems to have a voice in this industry. If you have a uniform voice with everyone singing from the same hymn sheet that’s great, but if you don’t you are doomed to failure.”
In Levine’s eyes, the end user has a big part to play in helping to secure a professional status for private sector guarding companies. “When business is not so good you have to work hard at the client relationship,” he stresses. “When re-tendering time comes around, the client wants to see added value from its security provider. They’ll often expect more for less money, but it just doesn’t work that way. It’s at that point that the contractor must simply say “No”, and walk away from the job. Unless we all do that the present situation of ‘lowest price wins’ will continue.”
Yet again, Levine rounds on the importance of in-depth, effective training. “We should all be moving towards an industry standard, but there is a cost involved if we are going to up the ante. What the customer pays for is what he or she is going to get. They must be made to realise that at every possible opportunity.”
The cost of insurance
It says a great deal when one of the insurance industry’s key influencers – the Financial Services Authority – goes on record as saying that insurers must strengthen their capital base. A barely-hidden reference to the need for increasing premiums. The underlying fear is that the industry per se holds inadequate reserves to fulfil major claims that may well follow on from September 11.
The insurance industry is certainly in crisis, and UK insurers will be forced to pay out a lot more in times to come – but from the same pot. If they’re not careful, the pot of funds will not be big enough. That premiums will rise (and rise sharply) is taken as given. Convincing the customer why that is so, and who will ultimately benefit from this, is not so clear cut. It’s an area of great concern for Jonathan Levine.
“If an issue arises on site then, more often than not, the onus of responsibility rests with the contractor,” states Levine. “If we can prove otherwise then the client is liable. At the end of the day, our premiums have shot up by over 60% this year, which is obviously of great concern. September 11 has given the insurance industry an opportunity to take advantage, and it has – in a big way.” Another cost which the beleaguered contractors are having to swallow.
In the years ahead, Levine will not be resting on his laurels. “We can continue to develop the business in London and the south east until it reaches a turnover of around GB pound 60 million,” he says, “but then we could also begin to look elsewhere”. The company has only ever operated in the Capital, but Levine feels that other “major cities” – he cites Manchester and Leeds (whose Premiership team he has supported since childhood) as prime examples – could open up new guarding markets.
“There’s every chance we’ll get into general facilities management and risk assessment, too,” he adds. “The front-of-house role could mean a whole new business opportunity for us in the next 12 months.”
For a man who wasn’t looking to move into the industry, Jonathan Levine has certainly made his mark. And he’s not finished yet. Not by a long way.
