Principles and Theory of Security Management

so far this week we have discussed three types of security: retail, institutional, and industrial. I think that there is a little bit of confusion still about what the differences are between each of these types of security because we are looking for good definitions for institutions and industry. At its most basic level an institution is an organized group working toward a purpose. We can think of institutions as being more broad than retail which is a sales organization for some sort of good.

Often when we think of institutions we are thinking about complex organizations such as schools, hospitals, or other non-profit/ non-business type of organizations. However, large service companies (such as Facebook, Microsoft, GEICO) etc. which are not involved in retail sales can be thought of as institutions in the security sense.

Question1. How are these three different types of security the same, and how are they different?

One issue that comes up a lot in security, and which came up in our discussion the first and second weeks of class, is that of organic versus contract capabilities. For instance, should the military use soldiers to provide security at all U.S. bases or should they contract that out to a firm and let soldiers focus on training for their overseas missions? The same issue comes up with executive protection.

Question2. Should executive protection be contracted out to a third party provider, or should it be an organic capability? What are the advantages to contracting executive protection to an outside provider?