This year I had the privilege of speaking at Security Industry Association’s The Advance, the association’s annual meeting, at ISC West 2022 in Las Vegas. As the CEO of PSA, the world’s largest integrator consortium, I find myself in the middle of problem solving on a weekly basis: “What’s it like to be the middleman between integrators and manufacturers,” you ask? It can be a challenge. When integrators can’t get product, we often take the blame. When they do get product, but it doesn’t seem to work, we can take some blame here, too. If an integrator gets product but doesn’t get paid by their customer because they don’t have enough product to finish a job … well, I’m sure you know what I will say. You see where this is going; it gives us unique insight into the industry from every perspective.
I believe what integrators need is help, not hope. It’s not because integrators aren’t smart or talented — they are. A lot of integrators start out with a lot of faith, optimism, courage, confidence … they have hope. What they sometimes lack is the ability to ask for or get help. At least, that is my experience. And I get it; before the iPhone, I was hopelessly lost most of the time. I traveled a lot but I was too pig-headed to ask for directions; I refused to ask for help.