The Security Benchmark offers two reports to Security Services Companies;
- The Security Benchmark Report
- The Security Benchmark (ACS) Report
Security Benchmarking Services
The Benchmark Reports
Report One
The Security Benchmark Report
The Security Benchmark is giving all security services companies the opportunity to take advantage of a comprehensive benchmarking exercise. Businesses will answer pertinent questions relating to their; Policies, Processes, Statistical Information and General Performance.
Once a business has completed the Benchmark Report process and received their report, they will have the opportunity to be placed on a publicly available register listed on the Security Benchmark website. Once registered, Companies will be issued a membership status of; Benchmark Gold, Benchmark Silver, Benchmark Bronze or Benchmark Member based on set criteria and performance levels. Buyers of security will have the choice of either; requesting the names of potential service partners from the Security Benchmark, or by approaching Security providers directly to tender for their contracts.
Download Sample Report
Report Two
The Security Benchmark ACS Report
Each year every approved contractor assesses its performance against 87 individual indicators of achievement within 9 criteria. At ACS assessment these scores are verified by an independent assessor representing the SIA. Performance above the required level per indicator results in a +1, +2 or higher score. The minimum overall score that a company can achieve and still be approved is zero. Zero is a satisfactory score, as it demonstrates that the company is meeting the ACS standard and following recognised industry effective practice. The maximum overall score that can be achieved is currently 175.
The ACS scoring system was not designed by the SIA to be a differentiation tool and this has frustrated ACS companies since inception over ten years ago. The scheme can assist when gauging overall quality, provided that its limitations are understood. An overall high score may not mean that an approved contractor performs well in all areas; equally, some approved contractors may achieve a lower overall score but may perform exceptionally well in a particular aspect of the standard. The Security Benchmark ACS report now gives ACS approved Companies the opportunity to benchmark their awarded scores against other ACS Companies by; overall score, each of the 9 criteria and all of the 87 indicators.
Download Sample ACS Report
The Uses of Security Benchmark Reports
1. Procurement
The reports can be used as a tool to demonstrate to any prospective buyer that a company excels in one or numerous areas against the industry average. By highlighting areas of strong performance could give a company a significant advantage during tender processes.
2. Continual Improvement
The reports will highlight areas of weakness and risk in business performance which could generate internal improvement projects and/or cost savings. ISO9001:2015 requires businesses to assess risk and opportunities within its business. If you are ISO9001 registered, the benchmarking reports will help you to identify and understand risk and opportunity and achieve compliance to the new standard.
3. Stakeholder information
Elements of the reports could be used for internal and external communication practices such as; Internal bulletins, Training opportunities, Board reports, Business planning & development, Advertising and Promotion.
4 Increase in ACS score
Some of the scoring indicators within the ACS standard relate to the benchmarking of performance against similar organisations inside and/or outside of the security industry. An additional (12 points) may be awarded if the benchmarking information compares favourably and is used to generate improvement and learning.
Indicators include;
- 1.3.1 – Business planning
- 3.2.2 – Approach to Tendering
- 4.2.2 – Effective Fiscal Management
- 4.4.1 – Market analysis
- 6.6.1 – National wage structure
- 9.1.1 – Service levels and customer performance indicators
- 9.2.1 – Customer feedback measures
- 9.3.1 – Employee performance indicators
- 9.4.1 – Employee feedback measures
- 9.5.1 – H&S, Society and the Environmental measures
- 9.5.2 – Measures relating to reputation within the community
- 9.6.1 – Financial performance
In addition SIA assessors may raise good practices against some indicators where benchmarking is used and these are published in SIA newsletters. These include;
- 1.2.1 – Factors critical to the business
- 2.1.1 – Service delivery processes
