At the risk of tooting our own horn, here at Butchko we quietly put our heads together and did something really innovative and different.
Between our small group of professionals, we have something like 80-years of collective experience in the security business; threat and risk, security planning, design, implementation…the whole ball of wax. We have seen the risk assessment process misused, misapplied, and contorted out of any semblance of quality or accuracy through underfunding, practitioner malfeasance, corporate stove-piping (such as “IT handles that, we don’t need to look at their risks”) – the list is long.
So, we decided to invent a new way of approaching the assessment of risk. Our goals were to improve quality and streamline results. No one should accept long delays and exorbitant costs to receive mediocre results. The result of our effort is a product we call bSMARTTM. We believe it represents the future of risk assessment, built on the lessons – both good and bad – of the past.
It’s all about the data
We have repeatedly found that bad risk assessments were less about bad methodology (the assessment of risk is not rocket science after all), and more about bad data exacerbated by poor judgement. Yes – the old adage “garbage in, garbage out” really does apply to risk analysis. Mistakes happen that corrupt the data. These mistakes can be in the volume of data collected, the accuracy of the data, or its interconnectedness with other elements of risk. Discipline in analysis begins with discipline in the survey process. When any of these mistakes occurs, the follow-on analysis will be flawed – and covering up gaps in data collection inevitably leads to a bad report. The number of times we’ve been called in, by frustrated clients, to fix a bad assessment, is more than we care to admit.
bSMARTTM begins with a very comprehensive, guided survey tool that ensures the right individual within the enterprise – be it large or small – gets asked the right questions. That is part of the value, in fact. We have been assessing risk for many years, and know what questions to ask – in many different markets, industries, and situations. The thoroughness of the survey ensures that the right data gets collected from the outset, across the organization. Unlike other on-line assessment methods, we have focused a great deal of effort and patience on developing a granular survey process, for the same reason a good fisherman puts a lot of time and effort into weaving a good net. With our survey tool, the enterprise is capable of casting a wide, all-encompassing net across the organization. Gone are the days of “sampling” sites. We believe in capturing appropriate data for all sites and operations under review. If you have an organization with one central corporate headquarters, a dozen regional hubs, and a thousand retail sites, we can efficiently capture all of the pertinent risk data for your company. We believe this provides granularity, and with that comes increased focus, accuracy, and efficiency in the analysis.
Our analytical approach to the calculation of risk is also different than the linear, straight-line approach of other methods and tools. We take a multi-dimensional view of risk, and make the intrinsically dynamic nature of risk a cyclical part of the ongoing assessment. As situations change, risk is recalculated and outcomes recalibrated. Further, we factor in the cascading nature of threat events (where a chain of individual actions leads to an ultimate result), and the decay of physical security measure effectiveness over time. These are all subtle, but significant elements of the overall risk picture that we believe must be taken into consideration.
What makes us different?
It’s pretty simple. Butchko’s roots are in the security solution side of the business; master planning, concept and detailed engineering designs, product selection and implementation. It is on this side of the security fence, that costs really start to spin up. What we have seen, time and again, is that good, disciplined assessments drive efficient planning, effective solutions and ultimate cost savings. You really cannot have one, without the other. Thought of another way, an investment in solid risk analysis is the best antidote to the worst dysfunctions within the industry: “security theatre” (investing in countermeasures intended to provide the feeling of improved security while doing little or nothing to actually achieve it); risk avoidance (the attempt to eliminate all threats and hazards); check-the-box security planning (security through rote regulatory compliance); or stove-piped security mitigation planning (“that’s somebody else’s problem”). Each one of these flaws drains money from the organization and is why security is quite accurately identified as a cost-center in so many corporations.
For this reason, Butchko developed bSMARTTM to deliver better value for the money. We like to begin, with the end in mind…for the business world, that translates to efficiency and effectiveness tied to cost savings. bSMARTTM delivers this result.