A Novel Strategic Plan

Abstract

In a closed meeting of the top management of the biggest Czech private security company (PSC) Agentura bílého Iva (ABL, Agency of the White Lion), in October 2008, the company’s founder Vít Bárta presented a novel Strategic Plan for 2009–2014. According to the transcript of this plan, published by a leading Czech daily in April 2011 (see Box 1.1), the company aimed at achieving a dominant market share by means of ‘uniform building of stable economic and political power’. To achieve the former (i.e., economic power), ABL was to develop ‘new categories of customers in the field of public administration (health, education, government agencies, local government, social services)’ as well as ‘a comprehensive security service for the [Czech] business elites’. To achieve the latter (i.e., political power), ABL was to acquire its ‘own political power base’ in the form of the previously little-known political party Vĕci veřejné (Public Affairs) (Idnes.cz 2011). In June 2010, Public Affairs competed for the first time in the general parliamentary elections. Running on an anticorruption platform (accusing the representatives of the established Czech political parties of being ‘dinosaurs’ of political-economic power-games), the party won 10.88 percent of votes. This translated into 23 members of parliament (MPs, out of 200) and an invitation to join the new coalition government, where the formal party leader was allocated the post of Minister of Interior (in charge of drafting the long-overdue law for regulating the activities of PSCs in the Czech Republic); the informal party leader (or the ‘superguru’, as the founder of ABL called himself) the post of Minister of Transport (in charge of the biggest public infrastructure spending programs); while his wife was duly elected as the Vice President of the lower (but in terms of legislative powers more important) chamber of the Czech Parliament.