COVID Is A Watershed Moment For Security, Facility Management Sector

Question: Lieutenant Colonel Rajeev Sinha: What do you feel would be the new normal in terms of preventive mechanisms going forward? Will it be the usage of IR/ Thermal, laser-based attendance and body temperature monitoring systems? Because as the panelists rightly said, this used to be the future technology. But today it is an essential requirement? Is the industry ready to meet this demand?

Rajeev Sharma: I have my views on the usage of thermal scanners, and the usage of the biometric technology. This basically emerges out from the fact that a lot of directives which have been given by the government of India, and I'm talking in the Indian context today, the government has prohibited the use of the touch base biometric technology across the country to prevent the spread of COVID 19 and this is something which was possibly not anticipated.

The most widely used bio-metric technology in India (or worldwide) was the finger touch bio-metric technology. However, the government has put restrictions on the use of finger touch bio-metric technology. Now, we will have to evolve through the contact less technology. I don't know which one would work best. Whether facial recognition or retina scan. But we will have to find a technology which can replace the touch base technology going forward.

There is a lot of investment which is going in the technological companies worldwide on working on finding the best contact less bio-metric technologies for future use. So one does not know if something may come up that is reasonably priced, very soon.

There are challenges in the facial recognition technology that’s why the finger touch technology was widely used. I think the companies will have to put a lot more effort to find something which can replace touch-based bio-metric.

On your second question on the use of the thermal scanners or the contactless thermometers, I feel, would go away slowly/gradually because there are technologies available where People can walk through and automatically their temperature gets scanned. So no individual is required to hold a contactless thermometer for temperature check.

This is based on free passage for all people to move around. There is a control room set up that keeps looking at individuals in terms of the body temperature. And they have the mechanism to identify a person with a higher worry temperature and immediately isolate the person from the crowd. So I think that will get deployed in probably the areas where your large crowd movement in the offices.

And it's not something which is mandatory now but it will be very useful going forward. It will be required. It will be desired to ensure that the employees working in facilities are protected and that the preventive measures are put in place. 

Question: Capt SB Tyagi: My question relates to the industry requirement today.

During the lockdown, few trends have come up that security people are more and more asked to get involved in the business continuity plan. They were previously part of a special team. There was a specific team and security guards were required to do that. But in the absence of the main pair of different, different teams, the security personnel are being asked to run the water hoses and check the sprinklers.

Is industry ready for the new skill sets, which are to be trained and imparted to security personnel? Is there any plan about it or something that is already in process? 

Answer: Majit Ranjain: Short answer: if you had asked me one month back—it was ‘No’. Obviously, we were not covered. Covid has come to us so fast and so hard that none of us were prepared for anything of this nature, ever globally. So, no, we were not prepared for this. We do not have training curriculums or anything to refer back to.

This is a unique situation. It is making you think you are having to devise a new strategy, new plan the new VCPs day in and day out. What may be absolutely perfect for today's situation in COVID, may not be perfect for tomorrow. It's very dynamic right now. So we really can't predict what is going to happen tomorrow. However, you are absolutely right. The security guard, as I had also mentioned, is now playing a much bigger role being entrusted with a much bigger role. They are having to come up very quickly to be able to respond to these circumstances.

It will be our endeavor as an industry to now come up with new plans of skill elevation, new plans of training these guys to come up to that level where they can handle much more than what they could in the past. And I'm sure the users will also start appreciating what we are providing for them. And accordingly, the whole market dynamic will change. 

Question: Vamsi Krishna: I had to get your thoughts on how you view the remote surveillance spanning out in this post dependent pandemic scenario and how the technology adoption, whether we are there yet, how it can complement the existing manpower with remote surveillance and especially including, recent development in artificial intelligence as well. How you think remote monitoring can help the security industry as such and how you see the planning?

Rituraj Sinha: I think remote monitoring is an essential part of our industry. I think the importance of remote monitoring will only increase over time. I think artificial intelligence is going to play a very key component in COVID SOP compliance. So, it is not physically possible to monitor hundreds of people or thousands of people working in an IT park. It's not physically possible to check COVID compliance like a mask and social distancing and various other things that, you know, COVID compliance includes. So I think the importance of remote monitoring will only increase with the time and the quality of artificial intelligence that we currently use is very rudimentary. The evolution of that will need to be at a very rapid pace and skill to meet future requirements.

Question: Anish Arya: How do you see the travel industry changing? 

Rituraj Sinha: Honestly speaking, I'm not the travel sector expert here, so wouldn't know entirely. But my broad thoughts are two froth. Number one, any sector that requires, contact and crowding like a concert, like a 5-star hotel; anything that requires contact and counting would probably be impacted more and will probably be the last to come out. It could be a restaurant; it could be a railway station, whatever it is. I think contact and crowding are the two essential traits that people are going to run away from.

As regards to our role, I think in the travel industry we've always had a prominent role. We see travel as a larger industry involving travel, hospitality, tourism, all bound up into one.

That sector is a very vital sector for us. We completely understand that the occupancy rates of the best five-star hotels in the country today is 90 per cent down, which is unprecedented. This didn't even happen during the time of 9/11. Or for that matter any other global fiasco, till date, has not resulted in the kind of adverse impact on airline business or hospitality business or even food retail business, as COVID has.

I feel that the sector will take more time to recover. I also acknowledge it's of a priority sector for us as service providers. We are looking to work with these sectors. I completely remember, 26/11 attacks in Mumbai.

Nobody really figured out that that point in time that in a matter of 18 months, every five star hotel, every mall, every public place will have a door framed metal detector and a baggage X-Ray machine installed and private security will be required to do three-level of checks. Cars coming in and then people, and then, different procedures. But that happened very rapidly. I think a COVID is a similar kind of a defining moment or a watershed moment for a, for a security and FM sector. And our role in travel, tourism, hospitality will transform more fundamentally than it did during 26/11. 

Question cont.: Anish Arya: I also want to add one more question. In my view over the past couple of weeks, what I've understood is that the vaccination is the only cure. Although vaccinating 130-plus crore Indians is again a humongous task. What are your views from whatever input you have? Do you foresee, I personally see it coming through in the next couple of months? What your comment on it?

Dr Anurag Batra: As you know, Oxford has developed a vaccine and trials are on. Several Institutes of India are developing the vaccine along with four other partners. Bill Gates said that he's working with the finest minds, but he would not like to raise expectations as Doctors said, that it normally takes 12-18 months for the vaccine to be developed, tested, and perfected. But with the unprecedented frustration everyone getting together, it could happen in six months. That's a possibility only after trials we know. But I don't think anybody has a definite viewpoint on that.