'Regulatory framework not adequate for corporate security'

A number of companies feel the existing security standards as well as legal, regulatory and compliance frameworks in the country are not adequate to support corporate security requirements, a survey said.
A majority of the respondents felt that the industry is not fully equipped to promptly respond to natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes, according to the survey conducted by PwC India and American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS).
However, many organisations have woken up to the implications of physical security over the past few years and there has been a conscious effort to ensure better safety arrangements, a statement from PwC said.

While five years back, physical security assessment was rare, today almost 46 per cent of the organisations surveyed in the country conduct a physical security risk assessment once a year, whereas 17 per cent do it monthly, it said.
"Over the past few years, corporate India has witnessed a steady increase in the number of physical security threats and breaches. While we have very little control over occurrences such as floods, earthquakes and terror attacks, we do have control over the ways we can safeguard our businesses and people against them," said Dinesh Anand, Partner and Leader-Forensic Services India.
The report suggests that it is critical for security professionals and management to be aligned and work together to identify potential strategic security threats and prepare a plan for resilience and sustenance of their business.

There is also a strong need for public-private partnerships and involvement of industry veterans in the policymaking process, besides the need for setting up a compliance standard for baseline requirements and benchmarks for physical security, the report said.

Anand further said the Private Security Agencies (Regulation) (PSAR) Act, 2005 also needs to be reviewed.
The report added that cybercrime and corporate espionage have been rated as two of the most serious threats to organisations in the coming years.
This indicates the need for stronger collaboration between the domains of cyber security and physical security on account of inter-linkages between the information and physical world, it added.