From Reactive to Proactive: Why GSOCs Must Evolve

Global security operations centers (GSOCs) have long been a key part of corporations’ security strategy. Their surveillance and threat monitoring capabilities have kept companies informed of disruptions that threaten operations and employees. However, as shifting geopolitical and environmental threats continue to change the world, businesses must reevaluate their GSOCs and consider options that will strengthen their security.

A GSOC provides insights about events across the globe that may impact personnel and infrastructure. This is typically accomplished through three main types of monitoring activities conducted by GSOC analysts—including major events, impacts on traveling employees, and facility access points—and supported by a combination of expert personnel and robust technology.

With a GSOC, a company can know how many employees are impacted by an event and quickly initiate a proper response, whether it’s to a lost passport, gas explosion, or an earthquake. The analysts working in the GSOC watch for three distinct purposes and types of information. The intelligence feeds focused on major events—such as natural disasters, terrorist events, or civil disruption—are monitored as the incidents could affect business operations. They monitor traveling personnel and geofence every piece of infrastructure so that they receive alerts when anything occurs within those areas. The analysts also monitor access points, confirming or denying entry to facilities according to pre-established protocols.

While the reactive nature of a GSOC has been sufficient in the past, it is inadequate in the sophisticated and rapidly changing security scene of today. High-caliber threats are coming faster and more robustly than ever before. Merely identifying a problem after the fact is no longer enough to protect companies’ personnel and infrastructure.

The fatal flaw of many GSOCs is that they lack operational capability. Apart from calling 911, they can do nothing except monitor and report. While a GSOC can inform leadership about how many people are missing after a hurricane or are stranded by an airport’s shutdown, it typically can’t identify an incoming storm and initiate actions to quickly evacuate the area of all staff. It can’t sense rising geopolitical tension and pull infrastructure or personnel to safety before a disruption occurs. While GSOCs excel at monitoring, taking in, and dispensing information, they lack the operational ability to problem solve.

Corporate decision-makers can elevate their organizations by leveraging today’s GSOCs, empowering security to act on intelligence instead of just gathering it and passing it along. To do this, companies need professionals who specialize in spotting a developing crisis and immediately enacting a plan to move staff and assets to safety. Expert insight is key to turning analysis into effective plans that protect company resources.

While GSOCs excel at monitoring, taking in, and dispensing information, they lack the operational ability to problem solve.

In addition, GSOCs must perform forward-thinking analysis. Instead of just recording problems as they happen, security must anticipate and forecast events before disaster strikes. For instance, a predictive GSOC could evaluate the risk of conflict due to geopolitical tensions and the threat of disinformation, which could impact a high-profile event like the Olympics. To protect businesses, it could enact preemptive measures like limiting professional attendance to secure venues or locations with an egress plan.

Technology alone can’t form these predictions, especially when there is a lack of clear data from or about certain nations or organizations. Considering and expertly analyzing where the likely next major emergency could happen allows an operationalized GSOC to proactively remove personnel and infrastructure from a high-risk zone, ensuring the safety of all staff at a lower price point compared to doing so reactively as part of a crisis response. A GSOC’s collaborative ability to think beyond the horizon can be the key to keeping companies safe despite uncertainties.

Companies can either build out their own operational capabilities or outsource them—each approach has its merits. The key consideration is that a GSOC—whether internal or outsourced—must be operational.

Successful corporations evolve. The old GSOC model may leave companies exposed to a host of threats. Combining surveillance and live-time response capabilities—whether by building an internal team or partnering with a vendor—allows a company to elevate its security and respond to threats with real and more successful solutions. Make no mistake, if companies continue to wait to respond until a disaster has already happened, it’s already too late.

Dale Buckner is the CEO of Global Guardian, a global security firm based in McLean, Virginia, which provides its clients with access to a comprehensive suite of duty-of-care services.