Stop Right There

At the manufacturing units a few streets away, though, this sense of urgency is hardly evident. Guards, some of them armed, routinely check visitors but there are no scanners or cameras, just a couple of registers to record entries. This, unfortunately, is the true picture of security for a large part of India Inc, where 26/11 is but a blip in history. According to market estimates, despite the acceptance that security is of prime importance, only 10 per cent of Indian companies take it seriously and invest in it. For the rest, primarily from the SME sector, it’s more a cost than a necessity.

Why, in times of economic slowdown, even some of the larger business houses have decided to by and large stay put with existing systems. “Obviously, we’ve strengthened our processes, increased surveillance and armed guards at our factories...but it can’t go beyond a point. We don’t want employees to feel threatened or uncomfortable by the security measures,” says Dr Santrupt Misra, group HR head, Aditya Birla group.

In other parts of the manufacturing sector too, there was no knee-jerk reaction. At Delhi’s Mother Diary, for instance, physical security has been increased at the factories and chief security officers have been appointed—but it was not necessarily as a reaction to 26/11, say company sources. Neither is there any change in recruitment practices. At FMCG major Dabur India too, there has been no new security initiative. Company sources say the company already had a practice where the top management never stayed in the same hotel, to prevent an eventuality. Ramesh Iyer, MD, Topsgrup, says there were lots of queries regarding security immediately after 26/11,  but all of it didn’t translate into business.

Surprisingly, there has also not been any urgency among companies to get fresh/ increased insurance covers, looking at the damage to property and life last year. The terror insurance pool created post-9/11 now covers risks of up to Rs 750 crore per location against Rs 200 crore per location when it was set up. But this increase happened before last year. According to Sanjay Kedia, CEO at insurance brokerage Marsh India, most of the awareness on insurance cover was in place after 9/11 itself.

Even in the IT sector, some small firms have not felt the need for additional measures. Says Dhirendra Kamboj, HR manager with IT solutions company Newt Global: “While physical security has been increased, there is no change in our hiring practices or attitude.” For some, the only change was a response system identifying a point of contact in times of emergency. These, typically, are chief security officers or administrators—or  just a poster with numbers to call in such contingencies.

At the same time, there is a growing awareness about building robust security infrastructure. Says Deepankar Sanwalka, head of forensic services, KPMG: “There is a sense of urgency in companies to look at security—both physical and data security. Some are also earmarking a specific budget for this. Training programmes are being conducted to sensitise people on the need for security.” But it’s still happening only at a small proportion of companies.

Typically, IT and ITES companies have taken the lead in enabling security systems. Much of this was driven by practices followed by their US-based clients in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. After the Satyam saga, some companies in the IT sector have also introduced content and e-mail filtering, even a central monitoring system to remotely monitor and control operations from a centralised location. Special CCTV cameras even record “strange” behaviour among employees. “There is heightened security activity in the last 8-10 months,” avers an employee in an IT company.

Security concerns have also moved to other sectors. As expected, it’s most pronounced (and visible) in the hospitality sector—which was the target last year. “Traditionally, corporates used a guns-and-guards theory as security was more of a nice-to-have feature. But it’s become a requirement now as the risk target is moving on to public places, which are mostly privately owned,” says Rothin Bhattacharyya, CEO, HCL Security Ltd.

Other services sectors that have a high level of public interaction—like retail, banking and insurance—are also making serious investments. While manned security is the first layer of deterrence, several companies now use CCTVs, biometric scanners, RFID and bar-coded tags to introduce new layers of access control.

Another tool gradually becoming mandatory is background screening of employees to weed out Trojan Horses that may creep into the system. “Now companies are getting even older employees checked. Some are also paying vendors to get employees checked...no one wants a bad apple,” says Ajay Trehan, CEO, Authbridge Research, a background screening company. Apart from educational and employment records, these companies also check for possible criminal records with the police.

It is a concern: rough estimates show  20 per cent of the cases checked every month show fake or questionable records. Adds Ashish Dehade, MD, First Advantage, another company in this space: “We call it the first line of defence against potential challenges.” It’s not surprising that the background-screening sector grew by 100 per cent this year.

At another level, there is also a silent discomfort among employees against these measures as some of them could be rather invasive on a person’s privacy. Lawyers aver that there’s also no real recourse to the law against any ‘excesses’ thanks to the security processes. There are also whispers of profiling of employees on the basis of religion or the region they belong to. “It’s one of those things that’s done, but not talked about. Everyone does it,” says a police officer dealing with security of sensitive installations.

But given the general concerns about security, employees just have to grin and bear it. Says an HUL employee: “There are colleagues who believe that the processes the company has put in place post-26/11 are just a hindrance.” No one will come forward to complain though. Companies are also being cautious. “In an environment of high-volume hiring, it’s extremely difficult to verify each and every aspect of each candidate,” says Misra of AV Birla group, which has 1,30,000 employees.

A common complaint is the fear of complacency. “The question isn’t whether the organisation puts in processes, it is whether it can sustain the effort behind the process,” says an employee at Bennett Coleman’s Mumbai offices. Like everyone else, corporate India is busy knocking wood. For most, it’s security as usual.

By Arindam Mukherjee in Delhi and Arti Sharma in Mumbai