Guide to choosing a consultancy

To ensure the highest levels of integrity and impartiality, NSI does not provide consulting services, neither does NSI have any financial or other beneficial arrangement with any consultancy found in this guide.

The NSI Associate Consultancy Programme (ACP) is a referral facility for businesses within the security sector seeking the assistance of a Consultant. The NSI ACP includes consultancies that provide additional support to companies looking to gain NSI approval, and consultancies providing services complementary/additional to NSI Schemes, for example: support in the areas of business continuity, business development, investigation work etc.

When choosing your Consultancy, consider:

Plan

Be clear about your reasons for employing a consultant. Make sure you completely understand what you need and communicate that to your candidate consultancies.

Obtain proposals from more than one consultancy, perhaps 2 or 3 before making a commitment.

Recommendations and References

NSI cannot recommend or comment upon a consultancy. The consultancies listed are consultancies that we have come across within the industry. You should seek references from them and make your own decision regarding their experience and competency to meet your needs.

Investigate

Try to find a consultancy with specific experience in your type of business. A plausible consultancy providing support for the standard you require, may not have experience of its application to your type of business.

Consider:

Carefully and accurately, define your needs and requirements. Time invested in doing so will protect you and should also help avoid unforeseen costs later due to 'scope creep'.
Ensure there is transparency regarding costs e.g. day rate of fixed price, travel and subsistence included or not?
Establish deliverables, milestones and quality criteria.
Establish SLA's and monitor performance.