In the public mind, stereotypes of perception of the concept of “ensuring security” as something connected with the state interests carried out by special state bodies are still very strong. Meanwhile, the law under security understands “the state of protection of the vital interests of the individual, society and the state from internal and external Threats “. Thus, the legislator puts the interests of the individual first.
One such interest is entrepreneurial activity, carried out individually or through joint participation in the creation of a legal entity. In this article, we will try to give several tips for securing the firm. The main goal of ensuring the security of the organization is to protect its property and employees from internal and external threats, identify and, if possible, eliminate the causes of their occurrence.
What threats are worth being afraid of?
Unfortunately, the organization’s security is often underestimated by its participants (shareholders) and the head of the organization. Often this leads to very serious consequences, starting with theft of property and ending with the seizure of the legal entity entirely. While a number of fairly simple, but carried out in a complex of activities can seriously reduce these risks. Before determining the list of these activities, it is necessary to assess the real threats. They are divided into two types:
- External threats.These include:
- The activities of unscrupulous competitors, aimed at undermining the business reputation of the organization, theft of its know-how, commercial secrets;
- The actions of raider companies or individuals aimed at intercepting the management of an organization or seizing its property;
- greenmail (greenmail, derived from green – «money» and blackmail – «blackmail»), that is, corporate blackmailin relation to the organization;
- Actions of individuals from personal hostility towards a legal entity, its managers or employees, aimed at causing damage to the material values of the company or its business reputation;
- unlawful actions of statepower bodies of employees.
- The internal threats include:
- Violations of labor discipline by workers;
- Offenses of employees aimed at causing material damage to the organization or undermining its business reputation;
- “Poor-quality” staff selection, etc.
What is worth defending?
It is generally believed that ensuring the security of the organization is aimed at protecting the two main interests of society. The first is the preservation and augmentation of his property, the second is the provision and protection of business reputation. If everything is clear with the first interest, then the second one often raises questions.First of all – in view of the complexity of determining the legal nature of the phenomenon and the choice of ways to protect it.
Under the business reputation it is customary to understand the qualitative assessment of the organization’s activities by participants in the civil turnover, as well as the actions of its real owners, affiliates, subsidiaries and affiliates. It can be assessed, and the damage done to it is measured in monetary terms. Therefore, we can assume that virtually all actions aimed at ensuring the security of the organization, protect its property interests. Including such, at first glance, far from the property assessment, such as control over the selection of personnel or the organization of media publications with positive assessments of the activities of the organization or its leaders.
How to build a security system?
The organization’s security system is built on a number of principles. They reflect the basic requirements for the formation of a strategy and tactics of action to protect the vital interests of the organization. The main principles are:
- Timeliness and continuity.Predicting attempts at the interests of society is almost impossible, therefore, when building a defense system, it is necessary to act on the lead and not to reduce the level of readiness to repel external and internal threats;
- Protection should be based on the readiness to repel encroachments simultaneously in several directions;
- The security system can not be based only on measures of passive protection, but must also proceed from the readiness to counteract encroachments in all possible ways, including non-standard measures of protection;
- Organization’s security system should be clearly worked out and act on the basis of and within the rules permitted by applicable law;
- Centralization of management.A highly technical and effective security system requires management based on a clear coordination of the actions of all its elements. Such coordination presupposes the existence of a single management center;
- Interaction and coordination.Security in the functioning of the organization is achieved through a clear interaction of the units directly involved in providing security and the rest of the organization.
Fixation of norms in local acts
A high level of interaction between the units is possible only if there is a general regulation of their activities, clearly enshrined in the system of local regulations of the organization. The main documents included in this system are:
- Regulations on the security system (the concept of their own security);
- Regulations on the access control regime;
- Regulations on commercial secret;
- Regulations on the conduct of official investigations.
In addition, certain provisions regulating security actions are contained in virtually all local normative acts of the organization, in particular, the rules of the internal labor regulations, the provisions on structural divisions and many others.
Main areas of work
You can select the following activities to ensure the safety of the organization:
- Work with counterparties.This area includes the verification of future counterparties, depending on the depth of the planned cooperation, establish: the financial and property status of the counterparty, the rights of the person who will conclude the transaction, the availability and validity of the license (if its activity is licensed), the absence in respect of The acquired property of the dispute or the rights of third parties to it, the definition of persons affiliated with the counterparty, the definition of “true” business owners. This includes the search for lurking debtors, the implementation of a set of measures to recover arrears, the implementation of measures to search for stolen property;
- Work with law enforcement agencies on the investigation of crimes and offenses that caused damage to the organization;
- information and analytical support (trackingof materials in the press, containing references to the organization);
- Information and propaganda support (createin the public mind a positive image of the organization);
- Information protection (creation in the organization of the system of protection of trade secrets and maintenance of its functioning, including through work with personnel, creation of the maximum protected from hacking of computer networks, observance of a mode of work with this category of information;
- Legal and psychological work with employees who violate the discipline of work and the rules of the internal order of the organization.At the same time, legal work is understood as carrying out of official investigations, preparation and drawing up of all necessary documents for attraction of employees to disciplinary responsibility;
- protection of objects belonging to the organization, includingthe penetration of third parties;
- personal security and the head of the firstorganizations of persons, protection of life and health of workers.
In addition to the above, under the conditions of Russian reality, it is also possible to single out such a specific direction as establishing contact with representatives of the municipal authority at the location of the organization and representatives of federal authorities. In the light of the prevailing practice in our country, this type of preventive security measures can play a very important role. The possibility of direct contact with representatives of government and law enforcement agencies is often the decisive factor in many situations and is simply necessary in the event of an attempt to capture the organization.
Who should be responsible for the security of the organization?
Based on the priority of these areas, the organization is also building a system of internal organs that solves certain tasks and responds to the challenges of the environment. In large organizations, the following structural units are usually created:
- Division of protection.It carries out direct interventions to address the protection of property and physical protection of an organization’s employees;
- Operational unit.He is engaged in carrying out official investigations, as well as with operational-search activities. It should be remembered that any actions to collect information about individuals or legal entities must be carried out in accordance with the current legislation;
- Technical Support Division.This department deals with work with high-tech devices, without which it is currently impossible to imagine any security system. First of all, we are talking about alarm and video surveillance systems;
- Analytics department.This unit, as a rule, is the smallest in number, but performs the most significant functions in the security system, such as the development of basic measures for protecting property, protecting the trade secrets of the community and coordinating the work of the remaining units of the security system.
In some cases, under the control of security services, the public relations department is also transferred. This is especially true when conducting an aggressive branding policy aimed at winning new markets. During such events, the organization becomes particularly vulnerable to the so-called “black PR” and, accordingly, should respond as quickly as possible to any of its manifestations by all means available to it.
Do yourself or involve specialists?
Almost all organizations are building a system of protection on the basis of combining internal and external resources. This policy is certainly justified. Involving third-party organizations that specialize in such activities, allows you to get the maximum result with minimal costs compared to creating a security system from scratch.
Most often under the contract (outsourcing) specialized agencies are transferred functions of general protection of objects and physical protection of the first persons of the organization. At the same time, it is necessary to take into account that in accordance with the legislation this type of entrepreneurial activity is licensed. Accordingly, before signing a contract, you should check that you have the necessary documentation. Also, it is often outsourced to the creation and maintenance of the operability of the system of technical means of protection and surveillance. Reasonable can be considered the involvement of high-class professionals in the field of jurisprudence to develop methods and measures for corporate protection of the organization.
But the complete transfer of analytical functions of an external organization is not only not rational, it can be just dangerous. Too many control threads are in the hands that are not under the control of the organization’s management. Accordingly, in order to decide on such a transfer, it is necessary to be confident not only in the high level of professionalism of specialists, but also in the high degree of their loyalty.
The creation of a unified security system is a rather complex process, requiring serious financial investments. Such investments are often not presented to the organization’s managers as justified. Unfortunately, they often change their point of view only after they incur serious losses.
The author is a corporate consultant to the lawyer company “Advocate Kalinin V.M.”
Source: Magazine “Legal Guide leader”