Securitas AB Annual Report 2005

Report of the Board of Directors – Direct
Continued good organic growth
“ 2005 was a good year with healthy growth in the
division’s operations. It meant a continuation of the
trends we have seen since the start in 1989, with a
history of growing sales and operating income. These
healthy trends are important for future investments in
new products, services, and markets.
Our growth has always been organic, and it will
continue to be so, also in the future. Client demands for
increased functionality and quality, combined with a
continued attractive pricing situation for our products
and services, mean that the integration of all processes,
from sales and installation to alarm monitoring and
call-out services, is becoming an increasingly bigger
and important business. Our business concept is based
on specialization and standardization, which makes it
diffi cult to acquire and integrate client portfolios from
other market participants into our business systems and
fl ows. Our goal is to continue to refi ne the basic business
processes to be able to allow for more innovation and
improvement in services, products, and market channels.
Establishment in new markets
When we move to establish ourselves in a market, we
do it in three steps. In the fi rst, pilot phase, we test sales
methods and the concept in a small area to get to know
the market, make local adaptations, and form a clear
understanding of how the expansion will take place.
We work locally, in a delimited geographic area, to build
up and train the management team that will lead operations.
This phase usually takes up to two years, depending
on how many resources other areas of the business
can spare. Then we follow up with a build-up phase,
when we begin the geographical expansion in the new
market. New sales coaches, sales personnel, installers
and local and external partnerships are recruited and
trained in area after area. Throughout this phase, which
Our growth has always been organic.
It will continue to be so, also in the future.
Dick Seger
Divisional President, Direct
takes between three and fi ve years in a small country,
the number of clients increases year after year as we
open up in new areas. During this period, relatively
large long-term investments are made while we build
up our customer service centers with 24-hour staffi ng.
When the basic structure is in place, the business enters
into an operational phase aimed at continued growth
in existing areas, while additional marketing and sales
channels are being developed and our services and the
content of our customer service continues to improve.
Organization for growth
The division’s organization is structured to support the
business in its various phases. It is important that the
division’s competence-center resources for products,
systems, service models, sales methods, marketing
campaigns, partnerships, and brand names are in place
from the start of the build-up phase in a new market.
The strength is the Group’s common structure for
business systems and business processes, which also is
a condition for being able to take advantage of the servicecenter
services for IT production for new markets.
Today we have well-established structures in the
Nordic countries for the unit that serves small businesses,
founded in 1989, and in Spain on the consumer
side, established in 1994. The unit Consumer is being
developed in the Nordic countries. These markets are
still in a period of volume expansion. Other markets,
such as, the Netherlands and Belgium, are in the pilot
phase. France has been a part of the Group since 1997.
The business there is concentrated in a few large cities
(Paris, Lyon, and Bordeaux) with stable sales, while new
pilot operations have been initiated in Strasbourg. We
thus have excellent opportunities for profi table growth
in existing and new markets for a long time to come. ”
60 SECURITAS 2005