Tackling Kidnapping, Hijack and Hostage Taking Conference

This conference - the 3rd annual event - will take place in London from 22nd -23rd May 2012 (Holiday Inn Kensington Forum).

The conference aims to update delegates on the current hotspots, both those publicized and lesser known and to discuss how the threat of kidnapping and hijack is evolving in those areas where employees could be most at risk. The conference will identify and assess those criminal gangs and terrorist groups who are operating in each of the hot spots and to demonstrate how effective crisis management strategies and risk assessment can be used to mitigate the effects of these events.

Topics to be covered:

• Where we are now - new hotspots and existing threats
• Risk Assessment
• Legal Implications
• Role of Government and Police Authority
• Negotiating with Kidnappers
• Maritime Piracy
• Prosecution and the Media

A good line up of speakers to be Chaired by Andrew Kain, founder of AKE

Find out more - click HERE

A Growing Industry: More Companies And People Are Realising The Need For Emergency Preparedness Planning And Travel Risk Management.

As part of our "Operating in Complex Security Environments" Networking Programme, Aprodex talks to Shaun Boulter, Director of Security at Assistance Alliance International (AA International Inc).

What is your background, and how have you developed your International Security and Risk Management career?
I am considered a specialist in all aspects of security and crisis risk management, including travel risk management. Prior to joining the AA International I was head of Crisis and Security Risk Management at RISQ Group based in Singapore, Prior to this I was also the European and Asian Security and Risk Manager for Perot Systems based in London, managing Europe and India where i also headed the Crisis Management Team. During this time i was responsible for developing and implementing the business continuity, security and risk management plans and operations in Europe and India. I have also gained extensive experience in Close Protection and Security Advisory roles. I was a security advisor and protection officer to the Qatar Foreign Minister for a period of four years, during which I travelled extensively on a global scale working and liaising with many foreign governments and security forces.

I have also performed a variety of other security related tasks such as surveillance operations, security surveys and close protection related tasks to members of foreign royalty and corporate VIPs in Europe, US and the Middle/Far East whilst being a senior consultant for Control Risks and also Red24. I was previously a member of the British Military for twelve years achieving the rank of sergeant, where I specialised in counterterrorism in Northern Ireland, the Middle East and Asia. I hold an MSc in Security & Risk Management from the University of Leicester. I am also a Singapore licensed Private Investigator and Security Officer. During my time in the military I was awarded the Queens Gallantry Medal.

What does your company do?
AA International (AAI), Headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, is an assistance company and a member of the International Assistance Group (IAG). AA International operates from offices located in Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Manila, Jakarta, Singapore Hong Kong, Seoul and Taipei.

The founding member company Asia Assistance Network (M) Sdn Bhd, was formed on 20th October 1998 is a 24 hours assistance company providing assistance services ranging from Medical Assistance, Security Assistance, Car Assistance, Third Party Administration Services, Home Assistance, Customer Service Assistance and other customised assistance services.

AA International, is today servicing over 5 million members, amongst our clienteles are over 30 major Insurance Companies, Airlines, as well as Corporate, Banks and Credit Cards companies throughout the region. AA International offers value added services in the form of comfort and security that help is just a phone call away. In turn, by ensuring that your Members quickly receive the best assistance available, AA International reduces the risk and cost of personal safety and operations locally and abroad.

Our 24 hours operations centre is managed by a team of dedicated staffs with multi language capabilities; our team of professionals is trained to handle security, medical, logistical and technical aspects of crises, minor and major emergencies with the efficiency and compassion that such events require providing round the clock assistance to your Members.

AAI also owns its own Air Ambulance service with two Lear Jet aircraft based in Asia (Singapore & Taipei), these aircraft operate under the brand name AeroMed Asia.

AAI provides solutions to members travelling worldwide. AAI is a Member and shareholder of the International Assistance Group with 36 offices and 46 round the clock alarm centres worldwide.

What are the biggest challenges your company faces today?
Remaining ahead of our competitors, so we always strive to provide a service that is flexible to fit with our clients requirements and allowing where possible for clients to have direct access to single points of contact and in so doing giving them a more client friendly boutique service.

How has your market changed in recent years, and how have current trends and developments affected the way your business operates?
The market has changed to our benefit as more and more companies and people are realising the need for emergency preparedness planning and travel risk management. Which is the reason our company is always looking to ‘build business for tomorrow’. We are constantly analysing what the threats are to companies and individuals at both their home location and also overseas. This then enables us to build and plan new services to meet these challenges head on and in so doing preparing and assisting our clients to be able to suffer minimal disruption to their operations.

What are your 5 year predictions for the development and innovation of your industry sector?
We foresee our company spreading further across the region as we engage more clients (such as the larger insurance companies that have regional presence). We allow our new clients to drive our growth in the region for this purpose as most of the larger insurance companies want and require a local presence to handle their policy holders. We are constantly looking at new products we can tag onto our services or clients policies that they sell to enhance our portfolio and also theirs.

What additional services do you procure to support your operations, and how do you source new suppliers?
We procure the services of our partners in the International Assistance Group (IAG) to support us with clients of ours who require assistance services in parts of the world that we do not have a presence. We also use tried, tested and vetted security consultants and consultancies to allow us to have a multiple tier of service providers we can call upon in the time of an emergency to help us support our clients on a global basis.

All our providers are normally sourced by recommendation or previous history with our company or a member of our team.

We are always looking for companies that have good synergies with us to either look at working together or to form partnerships so that we can provide more services to our existing and new clients.

What are your favoured technologies / equipment / “tools” for operating in Complex Security Environments?
Good intelligence is our primary state of the art technology service and this is done through a combination of both automated word search software and also physical analytical manpower. The combination of both automated and physical we believe allows us to be able to provide confirmed and verified proactive and reactive information to our clients. We understand there is a necessity to provide an analytical view and solution to each news alert we provide being of paramount importance so that a client can make an informed decision as to what to do with that information.

What products / services do you consider to be deficient in your area of expertise?
We can never have enough service providers on our books that can support us around the world in the time of a crisis. We are constantly looking for people and also companies that we can work with for such projects.

Technologies in the form of apps, travel tracking equipment be it travel itinerary monitoring systems and or GPS are constantly improving and developing new platforms to operate from so we are constantly monitoring technologies as they develop to see how we can integrate these technologies to improve and enhance our current range of services.

Internet business networks, such as Aprodex, enable a 24/7 capability to reach new clients and solicit new opportunities. Building a corporate presence and reputation on line is becoming ever more important - and unavoidable. What corporate communications methods do you employ to reach your target audience and what strategies do you have to increase your on line presence?
At present this is something we have only just started to look into and have considered the use of social networking such at Twitter. There are problems associated with this in that one bad comment will negate no matter how many good ones you have received. To date we have relied heavily on our marketing team and educating people as to who and what we are and allowing them to view our website and also to trial our travel risk management website.

Comment / Ask Questions about any issues related to the Interview via our . Shaun is specifically interested to hear and share information regarding evacuations in the Middle East over the last year as everybody who has been conducting evacuations from Syria, Egypt, Bahrain etc has experienced some difficulties. It would be ideal to learn from the experiences of others.

To comment Please Go To The Interview

More Interviews on "Operating in Complex Security Environments"

If you wish to be featured in our "Operating in Complex Security Environments" Networking programme, send an email (Subject: SPOTLIGHT Interview) to info@aprodex.com to request the interview questionnaire.

Syria: Aim For A Changed Regime, Not Regime Change

With each day’s tragic news of further tyranny in Syria the chorus for some form of armed intervention gets louder, but promoting such unrealistic ambitions keeps a forlorn hope alive which does nothing to relieve the suffering of the Syrian people. Too often calls for military intervention, a No Fly Zone or ‘safe areas’ within Syria are simply not thought through yet they persist, regardless of how detached they are from reality and the art of the possible. A yearning to end the violence in Syria is no excuse to abandon reason in favour of impossible, irrelevant or impractical ideas born of a need to be doing something. Nor should the oppression in Syria be automatically treated like that in Saddam’s Iraq or Gaddafi’s Libya, each case has a different context and constituent parts and must be treated specifically. Unfortunately, however, foreign powers appear determined to adopt generic measures which have been used before instead of exploring alternative approaches to the catastrophe in Syria.  

Clearly, Syria is a large and complex crisis with no easy solution, but the default conclusion that the repressive regime in Damascus must be overthrown is an instinctive reaction that should be challenged. The least difficult route to ending the violence in Syria is not through regime change but changing the regime. International efforts should not be focused on military intervention but on changing behaviour where it matters - in the corridors of power in Damascus, and specifically in the House of Al-Assad.

It is obvious that Bashar Al-Assad is out of his depth. He inherited an autocratic mantle he was ill-suited, ill-prepared and ill-equipped for. Patently, his regime can ruthlessly oppress but he is no ‘natural’ tyrant, lacking the fearsome or psychotic persona of an Idi Amin, Saddam Husain or Colonel Gaddafi. Instead, being tall and thin with a high forehead and flimsy moustache, there is something Fawlty-esque about him, while his quiet and slightly squeaky voice is more suited to a doctor than a dictator. After all, he chose to follow a medical career and had his eldest brother Basil not been killed in a car accident in 1994 Bashar would have continued his ophthalmologist studies at London’s Western Eye Hospital. Rarely can the heir apparent of an authoritarian regime been so devoid of raw and lifelong ambition. How Saddam’s pitiless sons must have looked across the border with bemusement and contempt, for theirs was a proper apprenticeship in tyranny.

In the event, Bashar had only 6 years in which to prepare for the dynastic throne and to replace his previous desire to save life and heal people with a cruel determination to hold onto power regardless of human cost. Eleven years later his regime is slaughtering civilians and the current crisis has exposed that he lacks the skills, qualities and power to deal with the emergency around him. Prior to this calamity his decade in office was characterised by statements and policies which sent out mixed and confusing messages and he remained an enigma: was he a tyrant happy to oppress at home and offend outsiders, or a moderate who would reform Syria and fully rejoin the international community? Foreign governments should have recognised this dichotomy and done more to help Dr Jekyll put down Mr Hyde. Their failure to do so is costing many Syrians dear.

The vacillation in Bashar’s rule may indicate one or more of the following: a dithering and indecisive personality that cannot govern effectively, a poor attempt to follow a dual-path approach which introduces slow change whilst keeping regime hawks happy, or a weak presidency that cannot exert authority over the views of hard-liners who hold real power in Syria. None of these possibilities equip him to respond adequately to the demands for change his people deservedly ask for. His increasingly fantastic appraisals of the situation in Syria suggest he has a dubious grip on reality, his refusal to implement concrete democratic changes call into question his leadership qualities, and the continued murderous oppression in parts of Syria indicates that, if he wants to stop the violence, he has little real authority over his regime. Syria is adrift without a true Captain at the helm and instead of closing Embassies, making bombastic statements and taking half-hearted threatening measures, the international community should be doing more to help Assad become the leader Syria needs. He has had responsibility thrust upon him, and evidently he is not up to the task. The Syrian people need help, but so does their President. Redeem him, and that will help them. Of course this would be an extremely difficult task but changing the regime would be less difficult and less bloody than regime change. It would also provide a better idea of what Syria will become where other popular options like ‘arm the rebels’ merely open the lid on Pandora’s Box.       

Lacklustre international efforts to engage positively with Bashar Al-Assad over the past decade (when did a British, US or European Head of State last visit Damascus?) make influencing him now much more difficult. The 2011 window of opportunity in which to do so before violence in Syria spiralled out of control has passed. Yet the Herculean task needed now to establish a détente with Damascus that engaged with Assad and cultivated positive change in Syria is more achievable than an imposed military intervention. One is just within the art of the possible, the other is not, and it was refreshing to hear a Syrian opposition group member on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme reiterating the senselessness of pursuing impossible military options. Sadly, by prematurely recognising Syrian opposition groups as the de facto authority in Syria the UK and other key states have already decided that Bashar is so thoroughly part of the problem that he cannot become part of the solution. However, the refusal of Russia and China to do so keeps a bridge open by which a way to engage with Assad might still be achieved.  

Of course, if Bashar has transmogrified from a career physician to psychopathic tyrant then efforts to exploit his potential as a moderate are absolutely pointless and regime change may be inevitable. But if he is an accidental tyrant floundering out of his depth, at a loss on how to manage change in Syria, isolated, weak and unable to oppose hawks within his own power base, then international efforts should be made to reach out to him, to encourage any moderate instinct, improve his ability to lead and govern peacefully, to strengthen his political authority and weaken the position of hard-liners who advocate oppression.  

If Assad is being pulled in two directions, within himself and within the regime, foreign governments must do more to promote the doctor and not the dictator in him. Focussing on impossible military options and treating him as a pariah may be popular responses but they will do little to relieve the agony of the Syrian people. Perhaps it is better to accept that he retains significant popular support, that his regime is not vulnerable and that, despite the present catastrophe, the hope many Syrians had of a greater liberty under his rule can still be peacefully achieved. That may be a remote possibility but it is worth pursuing.

Paul Smyth

paul.smyth@r3iconsulting.com

14 Mar 12

A Spotlight on Complex Security Environments - Interviews with leading companies in the International Security and Risk Management Industry

SPOTLIGHT is a networking initiative focusing on personalities in the International Security and Risk Management industry, and the Companies they run.

Our aim is to gain insight into the developing International Security sector from the perspective of experts, whilst promoting their niche services to a wide audience.

We learn about your company: the services you provide to your clients, and the challenges you face in doing so. We publish interviews via Aprodex in Focus.

The interviews are also your opportunity to reach out to engage in discussion about niche subjects. We invite and encourage stakeholders and interested 3rd parties to pose questions on the interview pages to solicit responses from the experts under the SPOTLIGHT.


To read the Interviews please browse Aprodex in Focus

• Ted Jones, CEO of Northcott Global Solutions "The Arab Spring has shaken up the traditional Corporate Assistance Model"

• Paul C, Director, Xenubis Providing technology to combat global threats – Xenubis stays “Ahead of the curve”.

• Chris Holtom, Founder of the Mars Omega Partnership Ltd Building The Information Picture: Using Software To Determine Your Course Of Action In High Threat Environments

• Tim Crockett, CEO of Pioneer Consulting Group “Maintaining personnel and resources that are ‘ready to go’: Pioneer Consulting Group flourishes in post 9-11 Era”

• Carl David, Director, Principal Risk Solutions
  “An Ethical Approach To Risk Management Will Deliver The Best Results For Clients”

• John Twiss, Chief Operating Officer, IMSA Ltd Establishing credibility and legitimacy in the Martitme Security Industry: IMSA Ltd has been successful by keeping delivery simple.

Registration and Log In required for full access to the Interviews.

Companies who would like to be featured in our "Operating in Complex Security Environments" Networking programme, send an email (Subject: "SPOTLIGHT Interview") to info@aprodex.com to request the interview questionnaire.

Back in the International Security and Risk Management Arena!

Okay, so it has been a long time since we updated this blog, but we after some redesigning and restructuring of the website and the Network in general we are ready to begin posting again!

What have we been up to?

Well, we have continued to grow, which is great - on average, some 300 new Corporate and Individual registrations a month from all over the world, of varying experience and expertise.

In that time the site has undergone some extensive redevelopment to make the platforms we provide more user friendly and interactive.

Our focus has been on YOU, the International Security and Risk Management Specialist. We aim to help you:

• Build your Company Brand
• Mange your Corporate Reputation
• Enhance your on-line Presence
• Reach the International Security & Risk Management Marketplace
• Generate Sales

Information Services and Customised Content
The principal change has involved the creation of an Information Services function. With so much information floating around the ether on the many diverse subjects relating International Security, it is often difficult and time-consuming to visit the sites you need to gain the updates that are of interest and relevant to you.

To jump this hurdle we have organised the Aprodex Network so that information from across the spectrum can be posted and dissemniated through ONE portal. Content aggrogated and then tagged with the Indexed subjects that are relavent, and this in turn generates email digests to Members who have subscribed to receive information about those specific subjects.

Think of it like this - instead of subscribing to, say, 5 monthly publications, all containing content that is not always relevant, you can subscribe to just ONE publication, and choose the subject matter that interests you. You dont have to go looking for it - it comes to you as and when it is posted. How easy is that?!

We have 6 core Services linked to our information Services Network:

• Job Vacancies
• Forum Comments
• Aprodex in Focus blog for Commentary, Opinion and Analysis
• News Items
• Business Leads
• Featured Services and Events

Members can now select any combination of the above, and then any combination of subjects from across the International Security and Risk Management Sector (via our comprehensive Index), in order to be kept up to date with developments and opportunities in their sphere of interest.

Interactive News Desk
The second improvement we have made is to enable registered Members to link their expertise to global security events as they happen, detailing how they can provide solutions to the reported scenarios. This provides you with the ability to demonstrate where your services can assist, and creates a growing awareness of your corporate brand.

Job Vacancies and SKILLSearch
We have reinstated the ability to upload job vacancies - but removed any associated advertising costs! That's right - all your job vacancies can now be advertised for free. Our SKILLSearch function links those vacancies through our Information Services so that we can target Network Members who have annoted on theri Profiles the desired skill sets you are looking for.

Operating in Complex Security Environments
We have also begun a Networking / BD initiative on the theme of "Operating in Complex Security Environments". Our SPOTLIGHT interviews aim to learn about your company, what you do, the challenges you face, and your opinions on the developing sector. The interactive Network enables stakeholders and 3rd parties to pose questions, and gain further insight into capabilities and potential collaboration.

We hope you like our new improved site - let us know, if not!

We'll continue to post developments and hope to work with you to:

a. Build and promote YOUR Brand
b. Help you source relevant, credible expertise for your operations in high risk, complex security environments

The Aprodex Team

Aprodex Welcomes a New Network Member: Global Telesat Communications

Aprodex is pleased to Welcome Global Telesat Communications to the Network

Global Telesat Communications Limited is a leading reseller of satellite communications equipment and airtime for use on the Globalstar, Inmarsat, Iridium and Thuraya satellite networks.

Based in the UK, GTC offers competitive pricing on satellite phones, terminals, airtime and tracking products. We also offer a satellite equipment rental service which has proved very popular with customers who only require equipment on a short-term basis.

Visit Global Telesat Communications' Profile

Understanding VSAT Systems - Training Course

by Spectra Group Ltd

Duration: 3 days - Hereford, UK

Next course: 29-31 March 2011

'I recently attended Spectra's VSAT course and found the scope broad enough for both commercial and technical staff. I was already familiar with VSAT but my aim was to bring myself back up-to-date in a relatively short period. I achieved my goal and the varied knowledge and experience of other attendees added to the comprehensive material presented. I found the practical sessions a very useful way of bringing theory to life and thoroughly enjoyed the course. Administration, accommodation and food were all excellent throughout.' George Gibbs - Applied Satellite Technology Ltd


Sounds interesting but what are the benefits?

1.Completing our unique, fast-track course will allow you to carry out VSAT commissioning with various satellite service providers worldwide
2.Our professional instructors have real experience of working in some of the world's harshest environments
3.This course takes a close, hands-on approach to provide you with the skills you require
4.Adding this course to your skill base will improve your contracting opportunities and ability to asses and deploy VSAT systems into corporate wide area network solutions


Ok so why this course?

In just three days, this unique course from Spectra Group (UK) Ltd provides an essential, fast-track coverage of the VSAT systems used throughout the World.


What about the cost?

£1,400.00 excluding VAT but includes all food and accommodation (cost can be reduced if you live locally or do not need feeding) for the 3 days.


Who should attend?

This course is ideal for engineers, communications managers, IT managers, technicians and all those working with satellite communications and VSATs.


Are there any pre-requisites?

Delegates should have existing experience in telecommunications or data networking prior to attending this course.

SEE MORE ABOUT THIS COURSE