Tapa set to move into top gear

HAVING LAID a solid foundation, the South African chapter of the global Transported Asset Protection Association (Tapa) is set to move into top gear this year. That’s the word from Germany-based chairman of Tapa: Europe, Middle East and Africa, Thorsten Neumann, who is more than satisfied with the SA response so far. “The interest is there and has exceeded expectation, but it’s a voluntary organisation and the big issue now is to get volunteers in position to drive our vision forward. “We believe that with vice chairman John Nelson of TNT and cargo security specialist Marius Louw we have the right people in place to move forward. “We will meet at the beginning of January to form a team and formalise future plans for the SA chapter.” From there Neumann is confident that membership will escalate. A decision has been taken to reduce membership costs for SAbased companies with no international links – and this he believes will add further impetus. “We see it as a goodwill start-up gesture.” Over the past two and a half years Tapa: Emea has more than doubled membership, and that’s the likely pattern once the SA chapter is structured and running. The next move will be to establish an official structure that is in line with the Emea region, says Neumann. The start-up is always the hardest part, he told FTW, and this was no different for the European chapter. “We are now seven years old. For the first four and a half years we had 10-15 members. At our recent annual conference in Malta there were 178 participants, which illustrates the exponential increase in membership over a short period.” Tapa is an association of security professionals and related business partners who have come together to address the emerging security threats facing them in the supply chain. While Tapa initially focused purely on technology companies, it has now broadened its scope to include the likes of the pharmaceutical and designer clothing industries who share the same problem of losses in the transport and supply chain. The driving force worldwide is the manufacturing and distribution industry who are the big losers in incidents of hijacking and theft.