Acpo Approved Inspectorates.

[Guest]

just had a look at the i.a.i.n site........what a disgrace to the industry...its nothing short of a cartel looking to take work off the big 3....a joke!!!!!remember where you would be without nsi/ssaib

Let us think a moment 3 large companies inter change staff at sales and managerial level all therefore having links with each other and knowing each others pricing structure, work load, engineer capacity, etc.

An architect on a large town centre developement specifies what level of reqirement current regulations and perceived insurance asks might be.

Any building contracter to cover his own insurance costs will off set as much as possible by asking only companies with high risk cover to price to requirements.

Each and every contracter will do the same,therefore the same quotes will be required to be produced.

If one company wins all of the contract it can leave them extremely short staffed for the period of time then over staffed when the contract finishes,if they recruit to meet there needs, not possible due to the great shortage of good engineers we are told about.

Some other solution must be found? do the big 3 lend each other engineers? or does some how one company never win all the contract. How do they manage to know which bit to price competavily, I don't know Iam just a cabbage

but the one thing I do know is those guy's in featherbed jobs with the big three companies, that download manuals to do cash jobs at weekends are taking the bread and butter out of the little guy's mouth.

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CABBAGE BY NAME...look those who have started their own co's done it as aside line first,some go on to do it full time and good luck to em i say..but professionalism must come first..not cheap digs and untrue stories of how nationals do this or that,yes its got to be hard to keep on the heals of the nationals and one step ahead of the cowboys,and from what ive seen on here theres only one co that does it(there not from leeds) act big, think big, be big,those are the locals who will do good,and no the big 3 dont lend each other staff(jesus)this iain stuff is bad in my veiw,as its not bringing everyone into play by excluding the nationals.....what next price fixing...

+bellman is correct,ive seen many engineers come from small co's then leg it after 6 months,workload to much,too many panels,jobs etc..i seen nationals engineers move to other nationals/small co's and come straight back(2 days the record) yes some prefer the more relaxed attitude of a local...but after all americas largest alarm co is still the leader by far...

YOU HAVE BEEN WATCHING...

[norman]

the cables are yours as are the detectors

I'll think you'll find the detectors are ours as well Mr Bellman.

[norman]

Its pathetic that a topic such as this should degenerate into a my firms bigger than your firm argument.

Bellman - for the record - us "smallies" are far more skilled than you think. I have spent all day working on a 50+ zone system, and this evening have been doing quotes/sales, accounts, tax.

I notice that when someone on here is asking business advice the guys from the nationals are very quiet.

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Here here.

[Guest]

whats that got to do with it...

[Guest]

i wish it was my firm

[bellman]

Its pathetic that a topic such as this should degenerate into a my firms bigger than your firm argument.

Bellman - for the record - us "smallies" are far more skilled than you think. I have spent all day working on a 50+ zone system, and this evening have been doing quotes/sales, accounts, tax.

I notice that when someone on here is asking business advice the guys from the nationals are very quiet.

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Not a my firm is bigger than your firm argument, just redressing the balance.

I'ts easy to go national bashing as they are a big slow moving target.

every time somebody has a pop at or tries to poach customers from them, they are, and i'll quote "taking the bread and butter out of the little guy's mouth. realmad.gif " the little guy in question here is me.

should I post telling all other companies customers that they'd be better off moving to the co that I work for?

It wears a bit thin being made out to be ripping people off (abeit indirectly) by all and sundry on a regular basis. come and talk to the customers in my patch, they are quite happy with the service I provide them, why? because I care, I will sit down and LISTEN to them, I'll explain to them how to use the installed equipment, show them possible weakneses and point out what can be done to correct those deficiancies.

but because I work for work for a big co, my workmanship is branded third rate.

I also today have been working on quite a large system at the local Department store, that's 92 zones. 10 exit guards and 10 smart psu's ... and as for business accumen, I previously ran my own Ltd company so I'm fully aware of what's involved in keeping the train on the tracks so to speak. it's not a easy job at all, and not one I ever relished doing..

If people asked me to give them Business advice, I'd happily give them some, but I'm not a professional in this field so I could only tell them my own experiances or what I would do in the circumstances. that dosn't mean that my advice is right or correct in any way shape or form as i'm not qualified in this field.

in response to others, yes, it was worded to prevoke discussion, which it has

Best Regards

Bellman

[bellman]

oh and for the record re the veritas fault it was patience you had a lot of as well as knowledge. i'm sure  you read my comments about your hard work and i stand by them but at the end of the day any competent engineer with access to our resources (the alarm manuals DVD) could have solved it - and it was the middle of the night so not many were on line!!

paul

   

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Hi Paul,

re:veritas

I wasn't having a dig at yourself your comments and advice was correct and were appreciated. the topic had been around for a few hours before I joined in and several posts had been made already. also yes, I've got patience by the bucket load, suppose that comes with the job

Regards

Bellman

[Guest]

whats that got to do with it...

Eng my point was that there is more to an alarm company than the alarms.

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i hear what your saying rich..my family has been is business for 25 yrs + iam young/old enough to remember the recession of the 80's..and it hit very hard..the strong come thru,which is why i respect you for going alone..but my point is the iain thing its not advertised as what its meant to be and can be pulled apart in that respect,never mind the legal side of it..

[Chris Teague]

Eng my point was that there is more to an alarm company than the alarms.

I've been reading this topic with much interest & couldn't agree more & I've always thought (no matter of the size) that any Security Company is only as good as the "Engineering" staff it employs. The suits don't pull in the cables & don't go out at 3AM in the morning do they?

There will always be slashers & bashers chucking in sub standard systems, firms picking & choosing their installs for audit, as well as a few really dedicated people who really do want to make an improvement and champion the customer.

Don't know what its like for some of you guy's further up the country, but over here on the IOW, its all about cost at the end of the day.

I could spend all day designing a tailored system for a client who then shows the spec to a competitor, who does it for £20 less & gets the job, but chucks it in so quick that when the lids taken off the panel, it all jumps out at you.

Regardless of experience & quality being offered, its not really about size, only the cost

I've taken over a couple of installs recently that are only a year old, where the client paid less to a competitor, but was subsequently unhappy with the after sales service once the job was done.

Its hard not to smugly say "I told you so" when they come back to you to sort out someone elses mess & end up paying more to sort it out.

[Brian c]

just had a look at the i.a.i.n site........what a disgrace to the industry...its nothing short of a cartel looking to take work off the big 3....a joke!!!!!remember where you would be without nsi/ssaib

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From my experience, most workers in national companies, from the guy at the top to the admin to the engineer, are overstretched and under-resourced. Also, a lot (NOT ALL) of the staff do not care about the customer as it is just a job to them. There are always exceptions and these people are the ones who keep the companies running. Due to the nature of statistics, there is going to be a lot of people in the nationals who do not do their job well compared with the smaller companies. These are the people that give them a bad name. Where the nationals perform well, the customer gets a quality system and good service and vice versa.

Customers do get ripped off by the nationals when they sign up for a rented system, but there are plenty of smaller companies offering the same service. It's just that the 'salesmen' for the nationals did not make it clear to most that this was the case.There is no reason to assume that small companies are not guilty of the same.

The point is that the I.A.I.N site and forum were set up(as far as I was led to believe) to address issues like this and hopefully have some influence on our governing bodies. Bearing this in mind, to say the site is a disgrace is over the top. However, I did want to add that, from first appearances, it does seem a little like an anti-//.National Installer.// site and that, although I agree home customers shouldn't have been 'conned' (remember they are still getting a monitored alarm) the way they were, I think the posts regarding that are a bit unprofessional and certainly not what the site/forum/network should be used for.

With regards to all the heated posts on the subject of nationals.......chill out a bit!...There's good and bad everywhere, no national or even local company can ever have a continuing 100% customer satisfaction rate.(unless you only had one job and it was your own house!)