The business context operators work inside is captured in International SOS's Risk Outlook 2026, its tenth annual. The standout finding: 47% named geopolitical instability as the leading driver of uncertainty for their organisation.
The theme the report presses is pace, the argument that crises now compound faster than duty-of-care structures adapt, and that legal and regulatory scrutiny of duty of care is tightening. For the protective industry that is the demand signal. Corporate clients are buying against geopolitical exposure, traveller visibility and documented process, not just a body on the ground.
Operator implication: the firms that win work are the ones that can evidence a system, so pre-travel risk assessment, real-time tracking and communications, and a clear escalation and evacuation chain, and show it holds up to scrutiny after the fact. 'We had a guy there' is no longer an answer to a duty-of-care question.
