Retainagroup, which provides an international security marking and registration service, subscribes to the theory that the best ideas are usually the simplest. At a cost of roughly £1 per asset, Retainagroup marks property with a unique code and a telephone number, which links the property to a unique database called the International Security Register (ISR). Police, businesses and consumers can phone the ISR hotline, which is manned 24 hours a day, to verify ownership of marked property. All it takes to mark and register an item is a label, some special glue and a phone call.
The service has impressed IBM, which now marks and registers property with the ISR, as does the National Health Service, Oxfordshire County Council and Unilever. Yet perhaps Retainagroup’s biggest coup is to get those airline rivals, British Airways and Virgin, to finally see eye to eye on something — both companies are using the Retainagroup system to mark equipment.
Despite its successes, Retainagroup is only just beginning to tap into the office equipment market. Yet the company has been protecting motor vehicles since 1982. Wendy Rowe, managing director of Retainagroup, founded the company 17 years ago, initially to fight car crime. Rowe remembers: “We started by just etching registration numbers onto car windows [Rowe came up with the idea after meeting the man who invented the fluid for marking glass], but thieves were far too clever for that. They started producing colour photocopies of registration documents in order to sell on stolen vehicles.”
Determined not to be defeated, Rowe launched the ISR, the first-ever UK register to enable both customers and police to check vehicle owners were bona fide. Fourteen vehicle manufacturers now use the system. Overall, Retainagroup registration numbers are now etched onto 30% of new UK vehicles each year.
According to Rowe, a year-long test carried out by Kent County Council, involving 2,850 vehicles, showed that ISR-registered vehicles are nearly six times less likely to be stolen than vehicles not registered. Royal Sun Alliance and Cornhill Insurance have been convinced by the system’s deterrent value, with both insurers offering reduced insurance premiums to owners of ISR-registered cars. Royal Sun Alliance offers similar incentives for businesses to protect office equipment, insisting that anything over a value of £1000 must be marked and registered. “We’re also aware that companies who’ve experienced any loss of equipment are being asked to mark their assets, prior to renewal of risk by many other insurers,” says Rowe.
Expansion plans
Increasingly backed by insurers, Retainagroup now wants to etch its name firmly onto the budget sheets of security managers worldwide. The company, which now has an annual turnover of nearly £5 million and employs 50 staff, has just moved its manufacturing operation to a new 8,500 sq. ft site in Ashford, Kent. To further underline Retainagroup’s ambition, Rowe has recently recruited Chris Brown, whose CV boasts an impressive array of IT industry experience, into the new position of business development manager. Brown’s brief is to develop Retainagroup products and promote them to businesses.
Brown has already set up a Retainagroup website to enable customers to register property on-line. He has also been instrumental in the introduction of a new security marking technique.
There really is no limit to what this company can do in the field of property marking and registration. 80% of IT equipment is waiting to be marked
Retainagroup has launched a UV mark which masquerades as a typical Retainagroup label. Should the label be removed, its ultraviolet-filled adhesive will leave the code and telephone number etched into the surface of the protected item. The owner’s registration code can then be clearly seen under UV light, claims Brown, incriminating anyone found in illegal possession of the item.
Brown, recruited from computer processing giant Intel, has also overhauled Retainagroup’s IT operation. “We have expanded our IT infrastructure to a degree that we can now register every single vehicle in Britain,” he enthuses. “There really is no limit to what this company can do in the field of property marking and registration. 80% of IT equipment is waiting to be marked.”
Too good to be true?
Many businesses certainly need to try something new to combat growing theft of IT equipment. Computer theft costs UK firms £300m a year, and accounts for two-thirds of all major theft from companies, according to the Association of British Insurers. Mobile phones, meanwhile, are being stolen or lost at the rate of one every three minutes, claim the police. Admittedly, mobile phones currently cost significantly less to replace than IT equipment. However, the emergence of WAP phones, which can store a considerable amount of data, means a mobile phone may soon be worth as much to companies — and to criminals — as a computer.
Many businesses rely on computer cages, electronic security systems and security guards to protect office IT equipment, but they can only achieve so much. They cannot protect a laptop computer once an employee takes it out of the office. There are some asset tagging systems on the market that can track movement of property, but the technology remains in its infancy and out of the price range of most businesses.
While Retainagroup’s system is easy to implement and inexpensive compared to the alternatives, Wendy Rowe is adamant it works. “The prime aim of the system is to deter theft, which it does incredibly well,” claims Rowe. “It’s very risky for a thief to walk off with a laptop that has a registration number on it. The visible number makes it significantly harder for the criminal to put the equipment back into circulation.”
Rowe recalls how burglars recently broke into an Oxford retail store and stole all of its computer equipment. The burglars were in such a hurry to flee the scene, they didn’t realise half the equipment was marked and registered with the ISR. Police caught up with the criminals a day later, after they had already sold on the unmarked IT equipment. However, they were caught red-handed with the marked equipment, which they’d been unable to shift. Subsequently, the store recovered half of its computers. Yet items marked and registered with the Retainagroup rarely get stolen in the first place, claims Rowe: “We get very few incidents of theft, because the system is so effective.”
Retainagroup is trying to gain Government support for its service. Rowe reveals: “We’re driving hard to become a Trusted Third Party (TTP) Provider for Government-related projects, in connection with recommendations in the White Paper [proposals for regulation of the private security industry].” TTP status can be awarded to companies which satisfy the Government that they can handle sensitive data responsibly — IT companies Baltimore and VeriSign have already gained TTP status for verification of electronic signatures.
Source
SMT
