Why Executive Protection Companies and Clients Need to Evolve from Simple Vendor Relationships to Strategic Partnerships

Like practically any other business, most executive protection companies are vendors as well as purchasers. We sell protective services to our clients, and we sometimes buy services from other suppliers to make this happen. Ergo, we need to be good at providing the services we sell, and we need to be good at buying the services we outsource.

It all boils down to quality engagement, quality control, and innovation.

Yes, 60-page RFP responses can get complicated. No, it’s not always easy to make sure a vendor on the other side of the planet that we use twice a year crosses every “T” in all the paperwork we require. But over time, we’ve learned that what clients want from us as a supplier – and what we want from our own suppliers – is actually pretty simple. It all boils down to three things:

1. Quality engagement with clients, employees, and partners: No long-term client wants to continue buying something from people who don’t care about them or their business. Nor do they want to hire folks who don’t treat their own employees and business partners well, who don’t solve problems proactively, who won’t go the extra mile.
2. Quality control: Clients expect us to do what we promise and to control the quality of what we do ourselves. Consistently, transparently, and whether anyone is looking over our shoulder or not. We expect the same of our suppliers. And then we check them anyway.
3. Innovation: Things change, sometimes faster than anyone thought possible. If we, as suppliers, don’t keep up and ideally stay ahead of the curve, then we’re falling behind. This is obvious concerning technology, but it’s also true for operations, business processes, organizations.

Are you a vendor or a specialist partner? Who do you want to buy services from, a vendor or a specialist partner?

We hope you’ll join us in a little thought experiment.

If you’re working in the executive protection industry, either as a provider or within a corporation, how do you see yourself? Are you a vendor, a specialist partner, or somewhere in between?

Similarly, if you’re involved in the procurement of executive protection services for your organization, what kind of supplier are you looking for? A commodity vendor, a world-class strategic partner, or somewhere in between?

Please take a minute to look at the chart below and think about where you are now. What kind of an executive protection supplier do you want to be? What kind of an executive protection supplier do you want to hire? How would you answer questions like these?

• Which level of performance tracking do you provide (or are you looking for)?
• How do you engage with your clients, your employees, and your own partners/suppliers?
• What kind of quality control systems and processes do you provide (or are you looking for)?

How innovative are you in coming up with new processes, procedures, and uses of technology? Or, how innovative do you want your supplier to be?

If you’re a provider of executive protection services, which of these four categories would you place yourself in? Where are you on the evolutionary journey from “commodity vendor” to “best-in-class strategic partner”? Are you happy with where you are, or do you want to change something?

If you purchase executive protection services, what kind of a supplier are you looking for? One who provides basic commodity services, or one who provides more engagement, quality assurance, and innovation? What about performance tracking?

We’re not saying that any of these four categories is necessarily better or worse than any other. In our industry, like most others, there is clearly a market for all kinds of different players, quality levels, and price points.

However, we do believe that more executive protection providers and purchasers will evolve towards strategic partnerships. That’s just what happens as industries become more professional. If we want to continue the professionalization of the executive protection industry, and if our clients want to make better-informed procurement decisions, then we all need to think about the kind of buyer-seller relationships that work best in the long run.