Key Takeaways
- • Sami Nomair, founder and CEO of California security guard firm Citiguard, argues in a contributed Forbes Business Council article dated Oct. 5, 2026, that physical security should be treated as a risk-based business decision that supports growth rather than a cost to cut.
- • Nomair contends companies should identify real exposures first and build security plans around them, because the costliest failure is often a risk nobody evaluated.
- • Citiguard assesses a property before assigning guards, examining where the business is exposed, which people, assets and operations matter most, what could interrupt them and what the interruption would cost.
- • Nomair says more security is not necessarily better security; the right answer may be stronger physical presence, access control or surveillance, or a mix of personnel, technology and procedures.
- • Nomair argues significant growth in employees, locations, inventory or operating hours should trigger a security reassessment, as it already does for staffing, technology, insurance and financial controls.
Summary
Sami Nomair, founder and CEO of Citiguard (mysecurityguards.com), published the contributed article "Security Is A Growth Strategy, Not A Cost Center" in Forbes Business Council on Oct. 5, 2026. The company's press release was distributed through PRWeb on Oct. 16, 2026. Nomair writes that he spent his early career in finance and insurance, industries built on the principle that every risk is measured before it becomes a loss, and he applied that discipline to physical security when he founded Citiguard in 2013.
The central argument is that executives should plan security around documented exposures rather than a generic staffing figure. According to Nomair, "A generic staffing number is a cost to negotiate down. A documented risk gives leadership a business problem that can be evaluated against the cost of addressing it." He notes that a lower-cost program may be appropriate if it addresses actual exposure, while an expensive program may still fall short if resources are misallocated.
Nomair describes Citiguard's pre-staffing assessment, which asks where a business is exposed, which people, assets or operations matter most, what could interrupt them and what that interruption would cost. He also argues that security programs can become outdated during growth, observing that "An access procedure that worked for 50 employees may become unreliable at 500."
The article recommends executives ask whether their most important exposures have been identified and assigned an owner, whether incidents and near misses are reviewed for patterns, whether the business has changed enough to make the plan outdated, whether each guard post still serves its purpose, and whether security technology produces useful information or merely more data.
The piece follows Nomair's Feb. 4, 2026 Forbes Business Council article, "Three Security Trends Every Business Leader Should Know," which identified prevention requiring trained human presence alongside sensors, supply chain and logistics risk as a continuity issue, and the professionalization of security roles. In that earlier article, Nomair cited CargoNet's 2024 theft report of more than 3,600 cargo theft incidents nationwide, a 27% increase from 2023, and a National Retail Federation report of a 93% increase in shoplifting incidents in 2023 compared with pre-pandemic levels.
Citiguard, headquartered in Woodland Hills, California, provides guard services across commercial, government, healthcare, hospitality and other sectors statewide. The company was ranked No. 3,229 nationally on the 2026 Inc. 5000 list.
The central argument is that executives should plan security around documented exposures rather than a generic staffing figure. According to Nomair, "A generic staffing number is a cost to negotiate down. A documented risk gives leadership a business problem that can be evaluated against the cost of addressing it." He notes that a lower-cost program may be appropriate if it addresses actual exposure, while an expensive program may still fall short if resources are misallocated.
Nomair describes Citiguard's pre-staffing assessment, which asks where a business is exposed, which people, assets or operations matter most, what could interrupt them and what that interruption would cost. He also argues that security programs can become outdated during growth, observing that "An access procedure that worked for 50 employees may become unreliable at 500."
The article recommends executives ask whether their most important exposures have been identified and assigned an owner, whether incidents and near misses are reviewed for patterns, whether the business has changed enough to make the plan outdated, whether each guard post still serves its purpose, and whether security technology produces useful information or merely more data.
The piece follows Nomair's Feb. 4, 2026 Forbes Business Council article, "Three Security Trends Every Business Leader Should Know," which identified prevention requiring trained human presence alongside sensors, supply chain and logistics risk as a continuity issue, and the professionalization of security roles. In that earlier article, Nomair cited CargoNet's 2024 theft report of more than 3,600 cargo theft incidents nationwide, a 27% increase from 2023, and a National Retail Federation report of a 93% increase in shoplifting incidents in 2023 compared with pre-pandemic levels.
Citiguard, headquartered in Woodland Hills, California, provides guard services across commercial, government, healthcare, hospitality and other sectors statewide. The company was ranked No. 3,229 nationally on the 2026 Inc. 5000 list.
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