// INDEPENDENT REVIEW · HANS STUDY · ONTARIO, CANADA
Independent review and owner's representation
On most security projects there are two technical parties in the room, the integrator and the vendor, and both are paid by what gets installed. This is the third voice: paid by the owner, selling nothing, reading the drawings and the quotes on the owner's behalf.
The pattern that produces most of the failed security projects I get called into is the same: the owner trusted the design because the people who wrote it seemed to know what they were doing, and they did, in the sense of knowing what they were selling. Nobody on the owner's side could read the network diagram, question the storage sizing, or notice that the platform version in the quote was two releases from end of support.
Four engagements below, in the order projects usually need them. The pre-purchase review is the one to start with if a quote is on the table right now.
Engagements
Owner's Technical Representative →
Your technical voice across a project: reviewing submittals, attending the meetings that matter, checking the install against the drawings, and holding the integrator to the specification.
Pre-Purchase Design Review →
A short, fixed-scope read of a proposed design or quote before you sign it. Catches the sizing, the network, and the lifecycle problems while they are still a change to a document.
RFP Development and Bid Evaluation →
A specification that can be bid against and enforced, and an evaluation that compares the bids on what they will actually deliver rather than on the cover letter.
Expert Opinion and Failure Investigation →
When a system failed, or a dispute needs a technical finding. Root cause, written for people who have to act on it, from someone with no stake in the answer.
What independence means here
No equipment sales, no margin on what is specified, no commission on platform selection. A&E and channel agreements exist so I can reach vendor engineering resources, and they carry no revenue. The full position is on the independence page, and the test it proposes is the one to apply to anyone advising you: does their income change depending on what they recommend?
Send the quote, the drawings, or the problem
Whichever you have. You will get a straight read on which engagement fits and what it costs.