Compare us properly. Including where we lose.
Most consultancies tell you what they are good at. Below are the three decisions you are actually weighing, scored against the criteria buyers use, with the cases where a template pack, a larger firm or a full-time hire genuinely beats us marked as clearly as the cases where they do not.
Which decision are you making?
Pick the question in front of you. Tap any criterion to see why it matters and how it plays out in a real audit.
The question: you need a certified management system. Do you buy a document pack, engage a volume consultancy, or bring in a senior practitioner?
| Criterion | Template packDownloaded document set | Volume consultancyLarger firm, tiered delivery | JumbatSingle senior practitioner |
|---|---|---|---|
| You do, unaided | Senior at the pitch, junior on delivery | A Chartered Quality Professional, start to certificate | |
This is the single biggest predictor of a clean Stage 2. Auditors interview the people who run the processes, and a consultant who has never walked your site cannot prepare them. Ask any firm, in writing, who will be on site, and whether that person will still be there at the audit. | |||
| Generic; auditors recognise it | House template, lightly adapted | Built from your real processes in working sessions | |
A system that describes a business other than yours is a non-conformity waiting to be found. The classic failure is a procedure that says one thing while the site does another. You have manufactured the finding yourself. | |||
| None | Often billed separately | Included as standard | |
Check this line in any quotation you receive. Audit attendance and non-conformity response drafting are the two items most often excluded and then charged as a variation at the worst possible moment. | |||
| Licensed, often locked format | Sometimes tied to a portal or retainer | Yours outright, editable, unbranded to us | |
If your documentation lives inside a provider’s platform, ending the relationship can mean losing access to your own management system. Ask what happens to your documents on the day you stop paying. | |||
| Rarely covered at all | Varies by who is assigned | Built in from the start, single system | |
ISO certification does not make you ADOSH-SF compliant, and the two are usually built as separate document sets that drift apart. Building them together is cheaper and removes the contradictions that become findings in both. | |||
| Not applicable | Strong: can field several consultants at once | Limited. One practitioner, sequential delivery | |
This is a genuine advantage of a larger firm and we will say so. If you need simultaneous mobilisation across many sites on a compressed programme, a multi-consultant team can do things a sole practitioner cannot. We would rather tell you that than take the work and under-deliver. | |||
| Lowest by a wide margin | Mid to high; overhead is priced in | Senior rate, but usually fewer days | |
A template pack really is cheapest on day one. The comparison that matters is total cost including a failed Stage 2, a second certification body visit and the remedial work, which is where the apparent saving usually disappears. See what certification actually costs in the UAE. | |||
| A very simple office scope with in-house expertise | Large, multi-site, multi-standard programmes | SMEs and contractors who need it right the first time | |
If you have someone in-house with genuine management system experience and the time to use it, self-implementation is entirely viable and we will tell you so on the call rather than sell you a project. | |||
Tap any criterion to see why it matters
The question: you are certified, or about to be, and someone has to own it. Do you hire, appoint a junior, or retain a senior practitioner?
| Criterion | Full-time QHSE managerOn your payroll | Junior HSE officerEntry-level appointment | Jumbat retainedFractional, 1–6 days a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whatever your salary band buys | Limited; needs supervision | Chartered practitioner and certified Lead Auditor | |
A junior officer cannot chair a management review, negotiate with a certification body or defend a legal register to a regulator. Those are the moments that decide whether your certificate survives, and they happen a handful of times a year. | |||
| Every working day | Every working day | Scheduled days only, plus phone access | |
This one is not close, and it matters. If your risk profile requires constant supervision (a large active construction site, high-hazard operations, continuous permit issuing) you need someone there every day, and we will tell you to hire rather than retain. | |||
| Salary plus visa, insurance, leave, gratuity, recruitment | Lower salary, same employment overheads | One monthly fee, no employment liability | |
Budgets that compare a consultant’s fee against a bare salary are comparing the wrong numbers. Visa and sponsorship, medical insurance, annual leave and air fare, end-of-service gratuity and recruitment cost all sit on top of the salary line. | |||
| System stalls; role can sit vacant for months | Same exposure | Continuous, no leave, no notice period | |
The most common reason we are called in is that a QHSE manager left, nobody maintained the system, and a surveillance audit is now weeks away. Continuity is the quiet advantage of a retained arrangement. | |||
| Knowledge stays in the business | Grows into the role over time | Partly. We coach your team, but the depth leaves with us | |
Another honest point against us. A permanent hire compounds knowledge year on year. Our answer is to train your nominated people alongside us so the system does not depend on our presence, but it is not the same as employing the expertise. | |||
| High-hazard or large multi-site operations | Sites needing daily presence under senior oversight | Organisations needing seniority, not headcount | |
A common and sensible arrangement is both: a junior officer on site daily for presence and records, with us retained for the senior work, audits, reviews, regulator and certification body interface. See embedded QHSE support. | |||
Tap any criterion to see why it matters
The question: clause 9.2 requires internal audits conducted objectively and impartially. Who runs them?
| Criterion | Your own staffTrained internal auditors | Jumbat independentOutsourced internal audit | Do nothingAudit skipped or rushed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Only if they can avoid auditing their own work | Fully, no internal reporting line | No, a guaranteed major finding | |
In a company under about thirty people, almost everyone touches almost everything, which makes genuine internal independence very hard to demonstrate. Above that size, trained internal auditors usually work well. | |||
| Depends on training and willingness to report upward | Audited the way a certification body will | Problems surface at Stage 2 instead | |
A clean internal audit followed by a certification audit full of findings is the classic pattern. It almost always means the internal auditor reported to the person being audited. | |||
| Cheapest ongoing, after training | An annual fee | Free until it costs you the certificate | |
Training your own auditors is genuinely more economical once you are large enough to sustain independence. We run internal auditor courses for exactly that reason, and will recommend it over our own audit service where it fits. | |||
| Yes, the strongest argument for it | Partly, unless paired with training | None | |
The arrangement most of our clients settle on: we run the first full cycle while training your nominated auditors alongside us, then hand over and return annually for one independent check. | |||
Tap any criterion to see why it matters
What we are, in one screen
A document factory
- Template manuals with your logo dropped in
- A system that describes someone else’s business
- Files you cannot edit without paying again
- Guaranteed certificates from unaccredited bodies
One accountable practitioner
- Chartered Quality Professional on every engagement
- Built from your processes, in working sessions
- ADOSH-SF and ISO handled as one system
- In the room with you at Stage 1 and Stage 2
- Editable documents you own outright
- Told plainly when you do not need us
A big-firm engagement
- A partner at the pitch, a graduate on delivery
- Overhead priced into every day
- Audit attendance quoted as an extra
- Your documents inside their platform
When we are not the right choice
We would rather lose a sale than take work we cannot do properly. If any of these describe you, say so on the call and we will tell you what to do instead, usually at no cost to you.
- You need simultaneous mobilisation across many sites on a compressed programme. Engage a multi-consultant firm.
- Your risk profile requires a QHSE professional on site every single day. Hire one; we will help you write the job description.
- You already employ an experienced management system professional with capacity. You probably need training, not consultancy.
- Your tender closes in three weeks and you have nothing. No one can certify you in time; we can help you respond honestly instead.
- You want a certificate without changing how you work. That is not something we sell, and accredited bodies do not issue it.
- You want one company to both build the system and issue the certificate. We build the system and help you select, compare and work with an accredited certification body, but the certificate itself is issued by that body, never by us.
The objections worth raising
A fair challenge, and the main structural risk of engaging a sole practitioner. Two things mitigate it: your documentation is yours, editable and complete, so no work is ever locked away with us; and we train your nominated system owner to run the day-to-day cycle independently. For programmes where continuity of cover is contractually required, say so early and we will be straight with you about whether we fit.
For a genuinely large, multi-site, multi-standard programme on a tight schedule, you probably should. That is stated plainly in the comparison above. The trade-off is who does your work. Scale is bought by leveraging junior consultants against senior rates. If your scope fits one experienced practitioner, that leverage is a cost to you rather than a benefit.
You should not take it on faith: check it. Every criterion above is something you can put to any consultancy in writing: who is on site, is audit attendance included, who owns the documents, what happens if we stop paying. If a competitor answers those better than we do, use them. A comparison you can verify is the only kind worth publishing.
No. Naming firms invites a snapshot that goes stale and misrepresents them the moment they change their offer. We compare against the delivery models you will actually encounter in the UAE market, and we describe each one as fairly as we can. If you are weighing a specific quotation, bring it to the call and we will go through it line by line with you, including the lines where they beat us.
Let’s make your next audit a non-event.
Book a free 30-minute consultation. We will tell you honestly whether you need a consultant, and if you do, exactly what it will take.