Corporate & Business · NPO & Social Impact · Property & Facilities
The easiest apparent saving in security is to remove something
Fewer guarding hours create an access-control gap. A cheaper monitoring contract drops bundled patrols. A lower headline fee brings replacement and installation costs. The test is same or better commercial value for an operationally acceptable service.
- 23.2%
- combined weighted repricing
- 24.7%
- on the processed subset
- 17.2–25.8%
- range across documented lines
- 9
- recurring lines repriced
Proof context: A multi-site estate with mixed guarding, monitoring and electronic security
The situation
Security is rarely a single line item
Across a multi-site organisation, security can include monitoring, alarm and response, guarding, CCTV, electric fencing, access arrangements and value-added services — often under different contracts, fee structures and local operating constraints.
Head office sees one total. Underneath it sit duplicate services, legacy pricing, automatic fee escalation, location-specific constraints, non-standard billing and packages that resist direct comparison. Each branch treated in isolation becomes a portfolio nobody can challenge.
Why a cheaper quote can be worse value
Different sites need different combinations of guarding, response, monitoring and electronic control. A lower price that removes response capability, or strips services already embedded in the package, transfers risk rather than reducing cost.
Local, regulatory and labour-cost constraints also mean that renegotiating with the incumbent is often more sensible than automatic replacement. That was the conclusion here.
Results
Three statuses, deliberately not combined into one claim
Scroll table sideways →
| Classification | Evidence | Result | How it is treated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Achieved / processed | Supplier confirms revised rates were processed on six recurring lines. | 24.7% weighted | Implemented supplier pricing in the source evidence. |
| Negotiated / supplier-confirmed | Two revised offers, retaining stated value-added services. | 17.3% weighted | Negotiated value — not called processed. |
| Negotiated / offer | A separate provider offered a lower recurring fee and requested acceptance. | 24.1% | An offer, not verified implementation. |
| Combined documented repricing | All nine repriced recurring lines in the final model. | 23.2% weighted | The overall commercial repricing, with component status preserved. |
| Modelled forward effect | Escalation assumptions applied to original and revised rates. | Advantage holds at ~23.2% | Modelled only. Not counted again as achieved. |
Line-level distribution
Evidence that this was not one blanket discount
Scroll table sideways →
| Measure | Result | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest documented line reduction | 17.2% | The result was not created by applying a single discount across every site. |
| Highest documented line reduction | 25.8% | Supplier and account circumstances produced genuinely different outcomes. |
| Median documented line reduction | 24.7% | Half the repriced lines sat at or above this level, half at or below. |
| Combined weighted reduction | 23.2% | The best single measure of documented repricing across all affected lines. |
Weighted, not averaged: a simple average of percentage reductions would give the smallest and largest service lines equal influence. The weighted method reflects the commercial effect across the actual repriced fee base.
What KuTh did
Five steps, in this order
- Map the environment. Identify the real mix of guarding, monitoring, response, CCTV, fencing and the zero-cost or embedded arrangements that never appear as a line.
- Normalise the spend. Separate recurring fees from irregular charges, to create a like-for-like baseline.
- Test service fit before price. Branch constraints, response requirements and value-added services are considered before the commercial arrangement changes.
- Engage the incumbents. Challenge pricing and escalation where service performance is acceptable, rather than defaulting to replacement.
- Validate the outcome. Separate processed changes, revised offers and modelled effects, so value is not double-counted.
The KuTh principle stated in the pack
A security saving is only credible if the organisation can explain what changed commercially, what remained operationally, and which part of the result is implemented versus still subject to acceptance or rollout.
The reduction here was not manufactured by stripping out service. The documented coastal offers expressly retained the existing value-added package, including medical response support, and local operating constraints were preserved in the commercial decision.
Supporting documents