Corporate security in fractured state: Mahindra SSG Survey

Mumbai: In a bid to assess the 'overall state of Indian corporate security' corporate risk consulting services provider Mahindra Special Services Group (Mahindra SSG) has unveiled the highlights of a survey to ascertain awareness and levels of concern about the changing risk environment, to trigger strategic thinking within senior management on corporate security.

The two major differences in the survey were that this study was focused on companies in India, and unlike other security surveys, addressed holistic corporate security. In particular, Mahindra SSG's survey looked at physical risk and competitive intelligence as focus areas for the first time.

The findings of its survey suggest that companies tend to perceive or measure threats arising from different risks in isolation. When viewed holistically, the total risk is larger than the sum of its many individual parts, because of inter-linkages and interdependencies.

The survey says that there is an urgent need for corporate India to adopt a holistic approach in recognising and managing corporate security. 

Speaking at the launch of the report Raghu Raman, CEO of Mahindra SSG said ''Until now, surveys have looked at the global landscape and tried to draw lessons for the Indian companies. We have always advocated that the Indian panorama needs different treatment, and hence this attempt to understand the risks that are unique to our operating environment.''

Raman says the results are not very different from what tgeh company anticipated.

The survey finds attrition to be the number one risk to information security. Competitive intelligence has emerged another key area of risk as most corporates struggle to deal with it. And for the first time, enterprises were confronted with the fact that physical security had a very important part to play in protecting intellectual property rights (IPR).

This report has also thrown up interesting paradoxes in the way risk was viewed and dealt with by the 'C' level executives, including chief information officers (CIO), chief financial officers (CFOs) and chief executives (CEOs).