I'd be interested in your views on the following dilemma that I have. We're currently interviewing security companies to provide services to our condo. The managing agent (who should pay us for the leg work we do) got 4 quotes.
We're down to 2 companies (I think - the other 2 have known manpower problems).
Company A is part of a large international organisation, and has a well organised training program. They do both corporate and residential security, although they only have a few jobs with a greater than 3 year tenure, but this is a result of the international organisation take-over where they "voluntarily left" clients (according to them). The security rating for this co is A. They also come with an all singing and dancing computer system to register contractors and visitors to the condo (the paper version works fine for me, so in my mind it is not a selling point).
Company B is our existing contractor who has been on site for 1 year. During this year there have been numerous complaints (from residents) about the night shift supervisor but the manager continued to defend him until he left (a month / so ago). At the meeting the manager mentioned how since this individual has left morale is back up and he has even had guards returning. This lack of awareness by the manager on the effect the night shift supervisor had on staff morale concerns me. What else is he not aware of? Said company is graded B(+?) and is hoping for an A grading in the review which is to be conducted in the next couple of weeks. Recently we've had issues with this company where we've had to tell the manager (which was news to him) that we're starting to use the security camera's to track the arrival times of the guards as they are coming in late.
The difference between the 2 companies? Company A is $20k per year more expensive than Company B. I'm not sure that I can justify that sort of extra expense for the as yet unknown benefit of Co A. Their sales pitch works - but from what I know about the security industry its down to the people on the ground and can any company add $20k worth of value?
Appreciate your views on the matter.