Discounted Security Services

It is with great amazement as of late I have come across adverts and requests for work from some other operators in the security sector who will “beat any price”.

Firstly, without knowing what price they are to beat how can they say this? There may be a very legitimate reason why a good security operator can operate at a given price, discounted or not, and they may have certain economies of scale in place that ultimately leads to that said company being the only company who can operate at said price and still make a profit. An good example of this is in the mobile patrol sector – it is not uncommon for ourselves to visit three separate businesses at given times throughout the night and all these businesses be within a mile of each other – this leads to certain cost savings that we can ultimately pass onto the client. With this is mind how can a security operator operate for cheaper prices when they need to drive 30 miles to get to that site in the first place?

I could go on with further examples across the other divisions of our business as there are many unscrupulous companies who are attempting to compete on nothing at all other than price. Ultimately, price is a very serious matter for 95% of organisations. However, price should definitely not be the only factor considered – would it be in any other part of your life? I remember as a student buying some “supermarket brand” washing up liquid – it was like water and fell out of the bottle without the need to squeeze it! If price was so important then why bother with an expensive car? You would not buy a 20 year old model for £200 would you!? It would be inefficient, have no air-con or power steering and when you needed it most it would break down!

Security companies can be just the same – those who offer you cheap services will ultimately be paying their front line staff a smaller hourly rate which leads to a poor work force. They may also be paying these staff cash-in-hand or even as illegal “sub-contractors” – this can have knock on effects for the client who may then land up in court for failing to ensure their contractors paid income tax. The company will probably not have allocated anything in their price towards paying for management time – so how does that work? Do their managers work for free? I think not. What about all the other costs involved in running a security company? At a glance the general public can think that we have little overheads or running costs and it has been said that the difference between what our front line operatives are paid and the hourly price we charge is “money for old rope”.

These people probably do not realise that we spend £25,000 per year on premises that are fit to interview and train our staff, secure enough to hold our records and a fit and proper base from where we can manage our staff. We spend in excess of £100,000 per year on doing just that – managing our staff! Insurance is another big cost in the security industry – as a new company nearly eight years ago we initially paid 8% of our revenue to the insurance broker to ensure we were covered in the event of disaster or a claim from our staff or a member of the public. Now, thanks to all our standards, accreditations and a long-standing clean record of no claims we hold public liability insurance to the tune of £10,000,000 which is ten times as much as when we first started. And guess what, if you contract a security company to carry out some work for you and a member of that security company injures a member of the public on your site then in the event of a claim them having no insurance or insurance that does not cover them sufficiently can lead to you being liable.

So, how do you protect yourself from such companies – those that appear rather unscrupulous? How do you distinguish between a “cheap operator” and an operator who provides an adequate level of service for a reasonable price? Ask these questions –

1. What level of insurance does the security contractor offer? As a minimum they should hold £5 million Public Liability Insurance and £10 million Employers Liability Insurance. Recent claims involving paralysis for instance have broken the £3 million barrier! Further cover may be also be required for your individual needs – for instance “loss of keys” cover and also “consequential loss of keys” cover. ASK TO SEE THE CERTIFICATE AND IF IN DOUBT CALL THE INSURANCE COMPANY TO CHECK AUTHENTICITY!

2. What does the security contractor’s price actually include? Ensure the price includes everything you need – it may be 52 schedules visits per annum from the contract manager, it may be a 24 hour call out service, it may just be ensuring all the staff always have the correct matching uniform on or their could be certain bits of equipment necessary to perform their job properly – who provides this? ASK THEIR REFERENCES IF WHAT THEY SAY IS TRUE!

3. What KPI’s do they monitor? Or do they promise? Will a member of their management team get back to you within the hour? Will they come and see you at 24 hours notice? What are the companies staff retention figures like? ASK TO SEE THEIR FIGURES

4. Can you visit their other customers? This is a major one – you can see first hand if their staff members actually look like the pictures on the website. They may not even have any clients for the work they have approached you to do! ASK FOR A COMPLETE LIST OF CUSTOMERS AND BE SURE TO CALL THE OLD ONES AND THE NEW ONES AS WELL AS SMALL ONES AND LARGE ONES.

5. What accreditations do they hold? Accreditations such as NSI Gold / Silver, SIA Approved Contractor Scheme, CHAS, BPA Approved Operator Scheme, Constructionline, BSIA and Safe Contractor all require a totally independent auditor to go into the business and verify the items listed above – they may also check the companies accounts and visit client’s for references. ASK TO SEE THE CERTIFICATES AND CHECK THEIR AUTHENTICITY WITH THE AWARDING BODY!