Posted May 28, 2012 by Rapid John in News

Sovereign Security Delivers With A BlackBerry NFC solution

Sovereign Security, a UK Security company delivers value-added services and reduces operating costs with BlackBerry NFC solution.

Based in Nottingham, England, Sovereign Security has been delivering security solutions to customers across the
East Midlands for over 15 years.

Its security services include mobile patrols, key holding, events security and security guards. Sovereign is an approved contractor of the Security Industry Authority, the organisation responsible for regulating the private security industry in the UK.

The Challenge

Private security is a highly competitive market space. To differentiate itself, Sovereign Security was looking to find a way to add greater value to its services. Darren Brookes, Sovereign Security’s owner, wanted to use Near Field Communication (NFC) technology to provide a higher level of service to its clients and also be able to confidently and competently manage the on-going work of a large number of security guards. He was convinced that NFC held the key to streamlining his operations and making the company more efficient.

‘Anyone can provide a security service. To get the business today you’ve got to go one above that. The way we decided to do this was to implement reporting systems that would make our guards a more valuable asset.’

After surveying the market, Brookes realised that the solution he wanted didn’t exist. So he approached Sero Solutions, a local systems integrator and member of the BlackBerry® Alliance Program. Together the two companies developed an innovative BlackBerry® smartphone, NFC solution for private security.

The Solution

Sovereign Security chose the BlackBerry® platform initially because of security.

Brookes stated:

‘The security on the BlackBerry is higher than on any other phones and also we work with local governments. They already use BlackBerry and it is something that they are happy with. The company also quickly realised that BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™) would make a reliable secure channel for communicating among guards.’

Sero Solutions’ Pretum NFC solution consists of a BlackBerry® smartphone, a BlackBerry app, RFID tag and cloud-based management and reporting system. The BlackBerry smartphones they use come equipped with a Near Field Communication (NFC) transceiver. A special app developed by Sero Solutions resides on the smartphone. The tags come in a variety of formats, but the most common one is an adhesive penny-sized RFID tag. When a security guard touches their BlackBerry smartphone against the tag, the application reads the tag’s unique identifier and sends the tag’s information, along with the identity of the security guards, to the cloud system.

Sero’s Pretum NFC solution reports the time and location of the security guard. It is used to establish timesheets and to tell officers where they should be. The supervisor and the client can also monitor the activities of the guard in real time. But the system’s real strength is the ability to assign alerts to tags.

For example, when an officer reaches a certain location in a warehouse and touches the tag, he can be prompted to make sure that he is meeting the conditions of the service level agreement. Before the BlackBerry solution with Sero Pretum, alerts were manual and were not always complied with. With the arrival of the solution, compliance with alerts shot up to 80%.

The Benefits

Brookes credits the BlackBerry solution with Sero Pretum for helping to reduce his firm’s mobile costs.

Brookes says:

‘With BBM we no longer send text messages, and all calls and data are included in a fixed price plan. It’s much more cost effective than what we had before. It’s raised morale and made us a community rather than just a bunch of users.’

The solution has also helped save costs in others ways. For example, because all time sheets and reports are generated using the NFC application, there is less paperwork to do and the firm estimates that it has lowered fuel costs by 25% and reduced the workload dedicated to processing payroll by 50%.

The clients absolutely love that feature

Sovereign Security’s customers also appreciate the added level of service. Customers consistently say they are “very satisfied” with Sovereign Security since the arrival of the BlackBerry solution. Take, for example, the case of property clients. To maintain their insurance coverage, they have to prove that the property is properly guarded properly. “We’ve set up a system where we can check a property and ask all the questions the insurance company asks. A report is sent straight to the insurance company to prove that the checks have been done.

Finally, in the case of an incident, the camera and voice recording features of the BlackBerry smartphones have proven to be very useful. “A security officer can file a report by recording a voice memo and taking pictures using the BlackBerry,” explains Brookes. “This information is highly valuable and is reported in real time, so action can be taken immediately.”

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