Interview : Bernard Galea, Director of Security and Economic Intelligence for the FM Logistic Group

Why is safety an important issue for your company?
Bernard Galea - With operations in seventeen countries, the FM Logistic Group employs 14,000 people, a good thousand of whom travel on business. As soon as I arrived in 2008, I set up legal protection for managers in light of the Karachi jurisprudence.

While insisting on keeping Shubb, the assistance company with which we have a contract, we launched a call for tenders with companies that provide safety and security support to businesses. Together with the Group's HR department, we selected Sécurité Sans Frontières as the preferred bidder.

What kinds of risks can business travellers face?
B. G. - They face a whole series of dangers. Starting with the risks associated with protecting strategic information. Their mobile phones, laptops and PDAs can be stolen or hacked. Then there are the social, criminal, health and, of course, terrorist risks.

What preventive initiatives are you taking in this area?
B. G. - They can take the form of training to make our travellers aware of the risks incurred abroad. In some countries, travellers will be met on arrival to avoid being assaulted or abducted. Via the intranet, they also have access to information sheets drawn up by SFF on "country risks. They can also call SFF's 24-hour telephone hotline.

Finally, we are currently testing the Locator software to locate our passengers and give them safety instructions beforehand. For example, it is out of the question for two members of the Executive Board to travel on the same plane.