Strategies to Protect Your Workforce or Fleet in Brazil

When bringing your workforce to Brazil it is crucial to get to know the potential dangers of the country’s largest cities. In this article we will outline some strategies to protect your workforce and fleet in Brazil using technology.

Corporate Travel and Dangerous Areas

Due to economic growth and increasing opportunities brought by its national businesses, Brazil has become the main destination for corporate travellers in Latin America. Data from Abracorp, the Brazilian Association of Corporate Travelling Agencies, indicates that this segment has expanded 408% over the last ten years. Close to 25% of foreign travellers arrive in Brazil to take part in business meetings, and the most important destinations include São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the two largest state capitals in the country.

Corporate travel to these large city centers is also highly relevant to Brazilian companies, considering that a sizable portion of them are located in regions that are distant to main business centers in the country. Both national and foreign travellers face the same issues when arriving at these destinations, which is dealing with the unsafe areas inside major cities, or the places where criminal activity turns into a realistic concern.

Nowadays, travellers have become reliant on GPS and mapping services to navigate inside cities, especially when travelling to destinations they’re not familiar with. In major Brazilian cities such as São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the reliance on these services and lack of proper security mechanisms has led to multiple instances of tourists being directed to dangerous areas and falling victims of crime. Even national companies such as Correios, which operates the Brazilian Post Office service, have introduced measures to protect their staff and stopped handling deliveries to specific dangerous areas in some cities.

With these issues in mind, insurance and security companies have worked to develop solutions to increase the awareness of travellers who are about to enter sensitive areas and to respond with immediate action when needed. Systems like Vismo Global Tracking Solutions provide an integrated solution for security specialists to monitor the position of their clients with precision, and also for companies to ensure the safety of their workforce when travelling to any city in Brazil.

Fleet Tracking

Aside from monitoring individuals, one of the main applications of tracking technologies is to ensure the security of vehicles and cargo. Vehicle tracking has turned out to be specifically relevant to companies operating in Brazil since the incidence of cargo theft has begun to escalate during the last few years. Reports from the National Freight Transport and Logistics Association indicate that in 2014 over BRL 2.2 billion in products and freight vehicles were lost due to theft on Brazilian highways, an increase of 10% from the previous year.

Some Brazilian roads, especially in rural and hard to reach areas, have minimal patrolling and security measures applied, and it would be reasonable to believe that these are precisely the regions where most instances of cargo theft take place. However, recently disclosed data shows that 80% of freight theft happens in the wealthy Southeast region, close to large city centers.

This is one of the main reasons to track the location of vehicle fleets in Brazil, considering specific roads and areas close to big cities hold the most cases of criminal activity. Platforms such as Vismo enables companies that transport high value cargo to track the position of their staff and vehicles in real time and check for the occurrence of anomalous activities. Additionally, by enabling communication between drivers and security partners, companies are able to call for immediate action when needed, ensuring minimal exposure to risk when operating freights.