What's Your Hostile Vehicle Mitigation?

In 2007 two would-be bombers tried to drive their 4×4 into Glasgow airport terminal building. Mercifully they were thwarted by bollards.

A subsequent review of such public place vulnerability lead to a movement known as hostile vehicle mitigation (yes, acronymed to HVM).

The travelling public encounter this without realising. Whenever they enter any of the new so-called “kiss-and-go” lanes every airport seems to have sprung. If their purpose were more widely known then I suspect they’d stop moaning about the ten-minute quid fee for these Drop & Go zones.

Sadly the December 2016 Berlin Christmas Market mowing down of dozens of innocent people by a hijacked ‘God-totting’ articulated lorry had no such protection. When re-opening, barriers designed to stop a hurtling F1 car appeared at crucial potential entry points.

Such prevention has been around a while. London’s ring of steel triggered by Irish terrorism. Moats around medieval castles.

And it’s a moat that today brings the construct to the fore.

Courtesy of the Americans. Really.

Their billion-pound embassy project in Nine Elms has a moat for this very reason.

Sleeping policeman speed bumps and manned booms obviously won’t cut it these days. You wonder how they feel about a toyshop drone laden with explosives targeting their next abode. Or the soft target of stationary visitor queues as they await to clear permission to enter. A Simpsons Movie Springfield town dome ought do the trick.

I seek not to belittle security. Quite the reverse. I simply point out that the less obvious is often the best defence.

I’m reminded of the supergraphic concrete lettered ‘ARSENAL‘ in advance of their football stadium entrance. The road system taking traffic away from London’s renovated Kings Cross complex. Birmingham’s New Street Station Grand Central taxi-way tunnel redesign.

So. It shouldn’t be a stretch to take these evolutions and map them onto our perfect deal.

Thankfully we don’t have crazed murderers with which to contend.

Our foe merely competitors laying us bid traps.

We must consider ways to keep them at a safe distance.

What tactics ensures you prevail?

A mechanism to happily lock-in an incumbent?

Unbreakable bonds with a specific contact/role?

A justification both irrefutable and ongoing?

Major heavily on one key unique?

A particular type of Event (or ‘hospitality’, even)?

When you know what wards off any opponent, you can structure your bid to include such Hostile Vendor Mitigation defences.