The aim of a security survey is to align risk management needs against project goals and objectives through an assessment of local conditions and influences, and how these might affect a company’s facilities or activities.

A security survey is a collaborative approach between our consulting team and our clients – ensuring the end product best meets risk management and business needs concurrently. RSM understands that it is imperative for risk consultants to fully grasp the mechanics of  how a company wishes to conduct business, both in terms of governance and ethos, as well as in terms of practical project needs – it is only by understanding these factors that risk mitigation and security measures can be placed into the correct context.

As such, our security surveys are complimentary and supportive of business and corporate goals – aligning risk management and security solutions to a company’s business interests.

Our Methodology

RSM understands that risk consulting tasks often fail to meet the objectives of the client, and that the reports often fail to fully address the requirement. Our goal is to design an approach which provides the right focus, with sufficient depth, to enable our clients to answer their immediate questions, as well as address secondary issues which might not have been included within the original scope of work.  RSM recommends the following stages to enable the effective implementation of risk consulting services in a particular operating environment:

• Stage 1: Direction – RSM will work with our client’s corporate and field management to define the nature, goals and requirements of the risk consulting task, ensuring that all requirements are understood and met in full prior our risk advisor deploying to a task. RSM will framework our security audit report with our client prior to deployment to ensure all requirements are understood and addressed. Understanding expectations and focus areas is critical to the success of a consulting task.
• Stage 2: Intelligence Review – RSM will conduct an intelligence assessment of the operating environment. The factors and influences which have implications upon the conduct of our client’s activities, or those of similar groups will collected, collated and analyzed. This paints the scene of the environment in which the project operates, and will provide a strategic understanding of the restrictions and threats the project may face.
• Stage 3: Threat Assessment – The Threat Assessment will provide a granular review of the macro and micro level threats the client will face in strategic terms, as well as the projects in operational or tactical terms. RSM will provide mitigation recommendations through a Risk Treatment Plan to offset risks in order to enable the project (and company) to successfully operate within the risk environment. RSM will also interview government and commercial organizations to ensure intelligence and risk evaluations are “bench-marked” where possible.
• Stage 4: Security Audit – A physical review of the project site and business activities, as well as accompanying policies, plans, protocols and procedures will be conducted to establish the actual requirements needed to continue project or business activities safely and productively. Our risk advisor will work in partnership with local managers to ensure that the project stages and requirements are fully understood, enabling the risk assessment to be aligned with the business activities goals, objectives and schedules. Interviews will also be conducted with appropriate staff and local employees or subcontractors. Assessments can also be made of security providers to gauge shortfalls or gaps.
• Stage 5: Consolidation – RSM will provide initial verbal briefs to local management as to the draft findings of the security audit in order to support local discussions on key issues. Our aim is that local managers have the time and opportunity to interview our risk advisor in order to fully understand any observations made during the security assessment, as well as discuss any recommendations made prior to our advisor departing and submitting a final report. The RSM risk advisor will then finalize a formal and provide this to client management. RSM often provides a verbal briefing to corporate management (if desired) in order to consolidate findings at both the field and corporate levels.