Dealers and Integrators Must Converge Their Core Competencies
To meet this challenge a new breed of Security Company must emerge in our industry that is technologically savvy and excels at providing a broad range of high-level security services. The “next-generation†security provider must possess a new level of system design and engineering capabilities supported by an organization that can provide turnkey services and solutions that historically the systems integrator and traditional alarm company have not been able to provide independently. A convergence of the core competencies of the integrator and the traditional alarm company will occur, driven by market demands and technology advances.
Security companies must position themselves to deliver services beyond the design and installation of systems. The next-generation security provider will need to function as an Application Service Provider (ASP) in order to administer and monitor a customer’s access control, video surveillance and critical alarm systems via a centralized platform running across the internet, minimizing the capital investment a customer must make in their internal security infrastructure. This means that security companies must make significant hardware and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software upgrades in order to reliably and effectively manage remote video and access control systems across the network. Some companies already have developed these skills, but to be successful in the future, they will have to develop all of these abilities.