Obviously, there is no commander-in-chief of the security industry to tell us how we are doing. But through SDM’s State of the Market article series, our readers can gain the knowledge of the health of the industry and its near-term potential in major markets, through the collective voices of security professionals. The State of the Market article series covers Alarm Systems (published in February 2010), Video Surveillance (published in this issue on page 58), Access Control (to be published in April), and Fire Protection Systems (to be published in May).
This year marks the fourth annual presentation of this important series. It is researched and written by SDM’s associate editor, Heather Klotz, and it is sponsored by Honeywell. What makes this series so unique is the wealth of information provided in each article — from research among our readers asking them to rate the state of the market for their own businesses, to external influences on the industry such as crime, to extensive interviews with distributors, integrators, manufacturers, dealers, consultants and others. Sometimes it’s a help to be able to compare the performance of your business with others like yours. Other times it’s reassuring to hear the industry’s larger businesses summarize what they’re seeing from a national perspective.