Corporate security must be intelligence and information driven

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.—Managing the safety and security of employees located around the country, as well as around the world, is a monumental task and one that takes a considerable amount of corporate teamwork. Eric Levine, staff VP and director of corporate security for WellPoint, Inc., a large health benefits company with more than 33 million medical members, said that his security organization approaches safety with a team perspective. “We partner with a number of organizations within our company to both act preventatively, with education, as well as in response,” he said. “It’s really shared amongst many organizations within the company from HR, legal, communications, security—everyone has a piece of that.” 

Ensuring security requires a constant evaluation of changing threats and risks. Levine said his department is largely intelligence- and information-driven and uses that changing information to determine the best way for the company to use its resources, whether it be in the form of dollars or personnel. The company also partners with outside companies to assist in its risk evaluations.

Wellpoint Inc. uses the services of NC4, a situational awareness and global risk management solutions provider, to enhance its real-time awareness of incidents occurring around its national and international facilities. “NC4 tells us when events are occurring near our facilities and gives us advance warning of potential problems and we of course overlay that with knowledge of the facility and the potential risk,” said Levine. He said the company gets updates ranging from traffic accidents and fire hazards to global terrorist threats.

The company is also working to enhance its own awareness capabilities. The security department is in the process of establishing a corporate situation awareness center where all information is received in a single place. “The concept of bringing it all to a central location is new here,” said Levine. “It allows us to evaluate information and intelligence, threats and risk in a centralized location.” Previously, each facility had its own command center. “We just see this as necessary to understand the overall risk and view all the bits and pieces through a single lens,” he said.