Pharmacy Retail Giant Delivers Threat Assessments 3x Faster to Enhance Executive Protection

Background

For large retail organizations with numerous locations and traveling executives, maintaining comprehensive security intelligence is both critical and challenging. This leading pharmacy retailer's Corporate Security and Asset Protection Solutions team was responsible for ensuring the safety of company principals during travel and site visits across their expansive footprint of over 9,000 locations.

The team needed to rapidly produce high-quality security assessments that would inform executive protection strategies, often under significant time constraints. However, their existing processes required extensive manual research, pulling data from disparate sources that varied in quality, coverage, and format.

Challenges: Manual Intelligence Gathering Created Bottlenecks

Prior to implementing Base Operations, the Asset Protection team faced several critical challenges:

1. Time-consuming intelligence collection: Analysts spent hours manually researching and compiling threat data for each location assessment, creating operational bottlenecks
2. Inconsistent data quality: Information gathered from various sources lacked standardization, making it difficult to compare risk levels across different locations
3. Coverage gaps: Certain areas had limited or outdated intelligence information, leaving potential blind spots in security planning
4. Standardization issues: Without a consistent methodology, deliverables varied in quality and depth depending on the analyst, available time, and location data availability
5. Communication difficulties: Sharing complex security intelligence with non-security stakeholders required significant translation effort

These challenges were particularly acute for executive protection cases, where timely, accurate intelligence directly impacted principal safety and resource allocation decisions.

Implementation: Strategic Intelligence Platform Deployment

The Asset Protection team implemented Base Operations' platform specifically to address these challenges. Their approach included:

1. Initial 45-day trial period: The team evaluated the platform against 73 specific locations of interest, allowing them to directly compare results with their existing methodology
2. Focus on executive protection use case: While the platform offered multiple security applications, they initially concentrated on supporting principal travel safety assessments
3. Integration with existing security workflows: The team incorporated Base Operations data into their established assessment templates, enhancing rather than replacing their existing expertise
4. Customized assessment development: Security analysts leveraged the platform to create tailored intelligence products specific to each principal's risk profile and travel patterns

The implementation was designed to maximize efficiency while maintaining their high standards for intelligence quality.

Solution: Street-Level Intelligence Transforms Assessment Process

Base Operations provided the Asset Protection team with several key capabilities:

1. Centralized intelligence platform: A single source of standardized threat data eliminated the need to manually search multiple sources for each assessment
2. Granular street-level insights: Sub-mile resolution allowed security teams to identify specific high-risk areas within larger neighborhoods, enabling more precise route planning and resource allocation
3. Visualized risk assessment: Interactive maps and heat maps helped drivers and protection teams quickly understand neighborhood risk variations without extensive briefings
4. Consistent global data: Standardized threat intelligence for both domestic and international locations provided a reliable foundation for comparing risk levels across the retailer's footprint
5. Recent, actionable data: Regularly updated intelligence ensured recommendations reflected current threat environments rather than historical patterns that might no longer apply

The platform's ability to deliver consistent, high-confidence data transformed how the team approached executive protection planning.

Results: Efficiency Gains and Enhanced Security Outcomes

After the 45-day trial period, the Asset Protection team documented significant improvements in their intelligence capabilities:

1. Dramatic time savings: Over 3x faster to complete intelligence assessments, translating to 37+ hours saved during the trial period alone
2. Enhanced quality under pressure: The team's ability to deliver comprehensive, high-quality intelligence products in time-sensitive situations significantly improved
3. More informed decision-making: Security recommendations gained credibility with leadership due to consistent, data-driven assessments, leading to more appropriate resource allocation
4. Customized security planning: The ability to tailor assessments to specific principals, locations, and scenarios enabled more precise security measures while optimizing budget utilization
5. Improved stakeholder communication: Visualization tools made it easier to share critical information with all key stakeholders, both security and non-security personnel
6. Gap filling: The platform provided insights into meaningful crime patterns near locations that were previously missed by their existing intelligence sources

Future Applications: Expanding Proactive Security Capabilities

While initially focused on executive protection, the Asset Protection team identified several additional applications for Base Operations within their security program:

1. Store location security tiering: Using threat intelligence to categorize locations by risk level and allocate appropriate security resources
2. New site selection support: Providing data-driven security insights during the site selection process for new store locations
3. Travel security program enhancement: Expanding executive protection capabilities to cover broader employee travel security needs
4. Cross-functional integration: Sharing standardized threat intelligence with other business units to inform broader risk management decisions

By transforming their approach from reactive to proactive security intelligence, the retailer has positioned its Asset Protection team as a strategic advisor in business decisions rather than just a tactical response function.

Conclusion

The implementation of Base Operations enabled this leading pharmacy retailer to significantly enhance its executive protection capabilities through standardized, data-driven intelligence. By reducing the time required for assessment creation by over 70%, the Asset Protection team could focus on analysis rather than data gathering, leading to higher-quality security recommendations and more effective resource allocation.

The platform's consistent, granular intelligence provided a common operating picture across the organization, improving communication between security professionals and business leaders. This transformation from manual intelligence gathering to a streamlined, data-driven approach has not only enhanced principal safety but has also positioned the security function as a strategic business enabler rather than a cost center.