Profile: Jason Trigg (CEO, The Cardinal Group) (Part One)

26 Jul 10

By no stretch of the imagination is Jason Trigg your ‘ordinary’ guarding company boss. For a start, this ‘Son of Harlow’ was educated at Cambridge University where he picked up a massively creditable MA degree (with Honours) in economics from the famous Selwyn College.

That fabulous achievement came on the back of having read business books from the tender age of 15, and studying the ways of commerce and history – as well as economics, of course – for his A Levels.

This was the age, in truth, that Trigg – a lifelong Spurs supporter – decided he wanted to run his own business.

“Cambridge University was a major culture shock,” Trigg told me as we sat down to chat at The Cardinal Group’s head office, a beautifully converted ex-railway building on The Station Approach at Saffron Walden.

How so? Having gained three A grades and a B at A Level when that particular qualification still meant something, and been the head boy at Bishops Stortford High School, surely he could stand tall and proud next to anyone?

“I felt there was a lot of snobbery attached to the whole thing, pretty much from the acceptance interview onwards,” retorted Trigg.

“I was very much into my sport at school, and I tried to carry on that tradition at Cambridge, but most of the time I felt alienated.”

That alienation extended to his bold attempt at participation in The Hermes Drinking Club, where pomposity also reigned supreme. Trigg’s chosen route of the usual pint and a packet of crisps was far too common, you see.

Early connections with the business environment

Trigg’s modesty had already shown its face even before we’d both had a chance to sip from the first cups of coffee of the day.

Apparently, he’d been on the cusp of trials at his beloved Tottenham Hotspur, and was no mean cricketer either, having been on the verge of playing for County Championship side Essex.

Anyway, I digress. Early connections with the business world were forged while the A Level studies progressed. During his summer holidays, Trigg worked at Eurotech Security and this gave him his first exposure to the security world. Run by some Trigg family friends, it boasted blue chip clients including the Arcadia Group, Adsa, Woolworths and Dixons Stores Group (to name but a few).

“My first summer holiday was spent doing the ten-year screening of new employees. Then, as my working vacations continued, I moved on to find out about payroll and invoicing in this industry,” explained Trigg, “and how the margins of a business can and do affect its course.”

Eurotech would later be sold to Temple Security, but Trigg was learning enough – and had certainly been enthused enough – to start thinking about how the security sector might be changed for the better as a result of introducing modern business processes and up-to-date IT solutions.

“My peers all thought I’d go and work in the securities markets in The City,” stated Trigg. Not an unreasonable assumption, one supposes, when you look at his educational track record. “They all drifted into the business world, and they were aghast when I told them security guarding was the sector for me rather than the London Stock Exchange”

As far as Trigg’s concerned, to learn – and eventually manage – any business, no matter the vertical market it sits within, you first need to be familiar with its people and functions. How do they interact? On that basis, he pushed to take charge of the Control Room at Eurotech and immerse himself in “operational delivery”.

However, the sale to Temple came about a short, sharp six months later, and Trigg was forced to seek alternative employment.

Falling back on his top class skills in economics, he wound up as a management accountant at Loc-Tite in another London ring New Town, this time Welwyn Garden City.

At the same juncture, he also “looked at studying for some of the recognised accountancy exams” until such time as another opportunity reared its head above the horizon.

Brief sojourn with accountancy

“Life’s all about timing, Brian,” suggested Trigg, the State School Boy who’d left the lofty world of Cambridge behind him in 1997.

“I was meant to be sitting for the ACCA examinations, but then I was introduced to a chap called Tom Almond who ran an events company. Tom and his colleagues were working for Chris Evans on shows like The Big Breakfast and TFI Friday.”

Trigg had itchy business feet. He asked his boss at Loc-Tite for some time off to study for the ACCA exams, but in truth he spent many of those hours granted to him on writing a business plan.

“My boss kept on grilling me as to how my studies were progressing,” explained Trigg. “That’s only to be expected, as any qualifications I could pick up in accountancy would enhance my own role and better the company. However, a week before the results were due I had to own up, and he wished me well for the new venture I’d decided upon.”

That venture was an event security solutions provider by the name of AS Security. “One day, we received a call from Reliance Security. It was around about the time BBC presenter Jill Dando was murdered. They wanted to know if we could provide additional security to cover the BBC contract. I put all of the necessary people, processes and procedures in place, and we ended up providing 40 or 50 officers per day.”

After new experiences of the security world during his time at AS, Trigg approached Eurotech with a new vehicle of his own. By this point, and post-acquisition, the company was reduced to being a key holding operation. Trigg recognised a major opportunity here, and decided to chance his arm by presenting a proposal to the company’s management.

“Could I perhaps share their premises? They had the infrastructure in place for me to outsource the back office requirements of a security business, allowing me to front end a new security guarding business.”

Eurotech ceded to Trigg’s polite suggestions and, pretty soon, he was beginning to win his own security contracts. In turn, Cardinal Security was born.

Learning from an old and dear friend, Jason has the upmost respect for – and gratitude towards – both Pat and Sue Riley for the chance they gave him, and for the mentoring, too.

By now it was the year 2000. Trigg had purposely maintained contact with Mike Taylor, who studied alongside him and gained a First Class Honours degree at Cambridge. Today, as many of you industry leaders will know, Taylor is the CEO at Innovise.

“Mike used to live next door to me,” recalled Trigg with a broad smile on his face.

Taylor took the route Trigg shunned, starting his business career in The City as a keen research analyst. He worked his way up to director level, and headed the media research team at Credit Suisse First Boston. Taylor was ranked highly within the leading internal and external polls, and duly involved in a number of high profile capital-raising exercises for companies such as BSkyB, Granada Media and Thomson Corporation. Taylor left The City in 2003 to focus on private investments.

Taylor founded The Innovise Group as a private company in 2003, floated on AiM through a reverse takeover of Contemporary Enterprises plc in early 2006 and has subsequently led the acquisition growth strategy ever since. There’s little doubt that Trigg has learned much from his compatriot’s business experiences.

Following on from the initial BBC project, Trigg soon began sub-contracting work for Reliance “on a serious basis”. He was only 23 at the time and, to his demonstrable credit, he was already pitching to the heads of one of the UK’s leading and best respected security names.

“It wasn’t just the BBC work we were involved in,” he said with pride. “Goldman Sachs, the Channel Tunnel project and major shopping centres - we were helping out with security for all of them at one point or another.”

About time to move on

On holiday, Trigg experienced a Eureka moment while lazing on the beach. “Don’t ask me why, but I just decided it was time we moved offices.”

He then rented the quaint old railway building adjacent to Saffron Walden Station in the heart of the Essex countryside. “The lavatories leaked and the walls were purple, but I never see any problem as insurmountable.”

And so, as the story goes, The Cardinal Security Group was gaining momentum… Station House was eventually bought and, to this day, it serves as the organisation’s operational headquarters. Trigg, for want of a better phrase, has gone back to his roots.

“From Day One, the big driver here has always been people supported by technology,” he urged. “Technology underpins everything we do, but you require a workforce receptive to ideas and innovation as well as the correct levels of training to make it happen. On that basis, we put the necessary infrastructure for the business in place very quickly indeed, and well before we did anything else.”

Within a short space of time, Cardinal began to win some significant contracts – mainly on the back of Trigg’s people management skills and his business process and centralisation acumen, not to mention his sound knowledge of how a margins-driven company ought to function.

At the time, Diane Johnson – then Comet’s national manager – would often visit Trigg for contract updates. They worked well together (so much so that Johnson would later move to Cardinal, where the former police officer and leading HR professional is now the group managing director).

Johnson’s skills set complements and underlines the people-focus of the business whether it’s Cardinal’s own staff or requirements of the customer’s loss prevention and security teams that happen to be the point of debate.

Dipping a toe into the retail space

Johnson joined Cardinal in 1996 as operations manager. “I remember Del Hunter, who was then with SSR Personnel, telling me he felt every good security company ought to have a good woman on board,” said Trigg. “Well, Diane’s now our managing director and her business and HR acumen has worked wonders here. She and I pooled our collective ideas on to a road map for the business, and then the Asda business came along.”

The Asda contract has been played out on a national basis, and Cardinal duly began to pick up work from other blue chip clients largely thanks to word of mouth and referrals.

“We expanded our base in the retail vertical,” outlined Trigg, “and then moved into the logistics arena and the general commercial sphere. Our whole philosophy was, and is, based around the business case reasons for security implementation.”

He continued: “Security guarding has always been a taboo subject for many retailers, and I was keen to learn more from them at retail conferences where I networked. Talking to them, you quickly learn that it’s the single most expensive cost in their budget.”

Then, as now, Trigg was heavily into concepts and models for security guarding. “At the moment, everyone’s talking about ROI and added value,” he suggested, “but do they really understand what these concepts actually mean?”

It wasn’t long before he elaborated on the theme. “Traditionally, guarding companies have been obsessed with money and margins, while retailers are always trying to reduce the cost. I look at it a different way because I wanted Cardinal to be measured on making a difference and providing the right people with the right skills and deploying in the right areas at the right time. You therefore make money by being recognised for doing something well and delivering value back to the customer – something measurable that they can demonstrate back to the Board.”

Trigg started to build a technology platform for his officers four years ago, and began to use management information to improve the ‘lot’ of the personnel. Fingerprint recognition systems and real-time mobile patrols were – and still are – very much part of the mix. The aim in 2006, then, was both simple and bold: to create a ‘Best in Class’ security business.

The ACS and regulation: have they been beneficial?

Like every other reputable contractor, Cardinal Security has become an Approved Contractor Scheme (ACS)-registered concern with the Security Industry Authority (SIA), scoring 115 on its last audit. Has that ‘badging’ proven beneficial in terms of winning work and bolstering the company?

“If I’m honest, I’d have to say that ACS listing hasn’t been that beneficial for us as, ultimately, the clients haven’t really bought into it. As far as I understand it, the ACS was meant to develop an ‘elite league’ of guarding companies, but things have changed almost from Day One. Where are the barriers to entry, not to the ACS but the industry as a whole? There are far too many ‘cowboy’ companies still in operation, and the industry continues to be driven down by a fixation on price.”

Much like myself, Trigg feels there are far too many guarding companies on the ACS list. “It should be a Top 100 and that’s it,” he suggested. “There’s a plethora of ‘Men in Suits’ who operate outside of this sector and who decide what’s best for us all in the guarding world. I came into this industry because I’m passionate about it. I remember when I first dipped a toe in the water, and asked the BSIA about membership. I was told that wasn’t an option until we’d been trading for a certain length of time.”

Cardinal joined the Trade Association a couple of years ago, in fact, and Trigg has subsequently formed the view – as have others over the years – that the BSIA is dictated to by The Big Boys: the likes of G4S and Reliance, etc.

“Look at SaferCash,” said Trigg by way of supporting his viewpoint. “That was set up as an independent campaign but, to the outside world, it looks like G4S has taken it over lock, stock and barrel.”

Continuing to rail against what he sees as “the Old Boys’ network”, Trigg mentioned that Cardinal has transferred lots of officers under TUPE from The Big Boys. In the last six months, for example, the company has won the Whipps Cross Hospital contract “based on our people management approach, our innovation and the use of technology”.

Trigg went on to say: “The officers we inherited hadn’t seen any middle management for months. That’s one of the biggest issues in this sector. Taking on contracts like this one has also made me realise that, as a company, our head is now very much above the parapet. We’re definitely being ‘tracked’ by the likes of G4S and Reliance. We’re on their radar, and I want us to break into the Infologue.com Top 20 in the next few months.”

As far as Trigg is concerned, some companies are in that notional ‘league table’ run by my great friend and colleague Bobby Logue due to their sheer scale. That’s correct, as the Top 20 is predicated on turnover.

“There are great companies there, such as VSG and Wilson James,” commented Trigg. “There are also the bundled services providers like MITIE and ISS Pegasus. In my opinion we need to be there, too.”

Of importance to service provider and client

Talking now in a more generalist manner, Trigg believes that the guarding business involves many ‘hidden cost’ areas that are important to both service provider and buyer, but not always addressed.

“The ability to communicate, turn up on time to site and know the locality inside out. Those are all of prime importance for the personnel,” he explained. “It’s high time real value was built back into the service, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Of course, major problems for the sector over a long period have been both contract and staff churn. When clients switch providers, they’re often driven to do so by measurable Key Performance Indicators (or KPIs for short).

“It comes back to what I’ve just said, Brian. The quality of the contracted personnel on site really matters,” asserted Trigg with much passion in his voice. “The service should be all about what it is they do for the end customer. They shouldn’t be just a body on site. You need to define the officers’ role and then deliver on that definition.”

What advice does Trigg have for those clients who, for whatever reason, aren’t happy with their current solutions provider?

“Change… If a guarding company isn’t conducting its business properly then it shouldn’t be in business. It’s as simple as that.”

In Part Two, SMT Online finds out all about ‘The Cardinal Roadmap’ and management style, and elicits the views of other members of the company’s operational team

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