CIS Bureaus Facility Services (CISB) is in the business of providing security and facility management solutions. It specialises in providing comprehensive end-to-end outsourced solutions in key verticals like central and state governments, Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs), banking and capital markets, retail and logistics, ports and airports, manufacturing units etc where security and safety risks are considered a major strategic threat. It has domain knowlede and expertise in the assessment and management of facilities, security and safety risks for corporates, PSUs, industries, townships, ATMs, Point of Sale terminals, Self-Service Kiosks, infrastructure, materials, valuables and people.

Some of its clients include well known names like State Bank of India, Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Reliance Infrastructure, IndusInd Bank, Edelweiss Tokio, IDBI Bank and Bharat Petroleum. Over the years CISB has built up considerable domain knowledge and expertise in assessment and management of facilities, security and safety risks. CISB has 14 regional, 36 branch offices and 18,000 personnel nationwide. It also has its own 7 training centres across India. The company has international presence with its offices in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Doha. It also has tie-ups with about 15 companies from countries like Israel, USA and Switzerland, which include companies like Mprest, Opgal, Yazam Tech, Verint for services including electronic security system, vehicle scanning, explosive detection, convoy jammer and nigh vision division.

Challenges

Though India is a country, which has a large amount of human resource in industries like Security and Facility Management, there is a larger requirement of skilled manpower of which there is a dearth in the market. In order to maintain the high standards of service for its clients, the company cannot take the risk of employing unskilled people. Since the availability of skilled manpower is scarce, the increasing cost of manpower is a major challenge for the company.

Increase in number of statutory tax compliances is another major hurdle for company’s operations at a large scale with huge employee base scattered all over India. Some of its key responsibilities include contribution towards statutory authorities like Provident Fund, ESI and Income Tax. A lot of time and energy is spent on assuring that right amount of deductions and contributions are remitted within the given timeframe. Bigger challenge is that, owing to the company’s spread, it has to deal with complex procedures, taxes and compliances that vary from state to state.

Hence it becomes physically taxing for employers as well as for the employees.

Solution

The company has decided to focus on clients who are in a position to pay for the high quality services on offer by CISB. The target is now only large-scale business sector clients who understand the value of the services and not go by the rate card on offer. Smaller players in the market often do not have the capacity to deliver end-to-end solution to corporates, government etc. This is where CISB’s scale of operation comes into play and though the cost of manpower has increased, catering to big clients has helped it to negate the effects of additional costs.

The company is now looking for a wider pool of source of skilled manpower, which can help reduce the overall cost of operations. Training unskilled manpower along with usage of latest technology will make the employees as well as the company more efficient and deliver better value to its customers.