Companies ranked on the SDM  100 Report describe putting security-as-a-service into action.  A financial expert describes why there has been a sustained wave  of investment in the alarm industry.

My column last year in this issue described how SDM 100 companies were rolling out security-as-a-service to meet customers’ needs and develop a broader base of recurring monthly revenue (RMR). Security-as-a-service — which often is cloud-based — “not only provides customers with a consistent pay structure for ongoing services, as well as convenience and scalability, but it also enables security companies to develop a subscription-based business model not unlike alarm monitoring,” I stated at that time.

A year later — scrutinizing the 2013 SDM 100 (see page 47) — we see the security-as-a-service model put into action. Hosted and managed services, although they only averaged 2 percent of service revenue among SDM 100 companies, was a recurrent theme among dealers and integrators when citing the important work they did for their clients in 2012.

As an example, “ASG installed an enterprise-wide hosted video system for Texas Title Loans across 10 customer locations, enabling the customer to view live and recorded video and audio (with consent) of customer loan transactions from a PC or mobile device from video streamed and stored off-site in the cloud. This helped the customer achieve their internal requirements for security, auditing and training, and generated a significant RMR contract for ASG,” noted ASG Security, ranked No. 11.

Interface Security Systems Holdings, which last year integrated its acquisition of Westec Intelligent Surveillance into the business, noted that it grew RMR by 34 percent in 2012.

At The Protection Bureau, ranked No. 66, the focus was on fully integrated managed services, including remote management of access control, video alarm monitoring, elevator floor control, and virtual doorman with remote-release ability.

One of the highlights of this report is the article contributed by John Mack of Imperial Capital, titled, “The Financial Community Assesses Change in the SDM 100,” on page 52. Mack discusses how, in addition to consolidation, an increase in company size among the SDM 100 is being driven organically by increased market penetration and average-revenue-per-unit due to the introduction and adoption of enhanced services, such as remote video monitoring and Web-based home automation services.

Check out the 2013 SDM 100, beginning on page 47, and let us know what appeals to you about this exclusive report.

SDM 100 8th Annual Gala

All security professionals are invited to join us as we honor the 2013 SDM 100 companies at the eighth annual SDM Gala, to be held on Thursday, June 20, 2013 at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville, Tenn. This year’s Gala will have an Around the World theme. See  page 162 for details about how to purchase tickets in advance.

MORE ONLINE

Every issue of SDM now connects you with related content on our website, www.SDMmag.com. In some cases, the website content is a set of articles that relates to the article in print. Other times you will find links to multimedia content such as webinars, videos, podcasts and photo galleries. And in many cases, the content is exclusively published on the website — you won’t find it anywhere in the print edition.

For example, the article “Software Helps Make the Sale,” is published only online at www.SDMmag.com/sales-management. It discusses how much of the sales management software developed for the security industry has capabilities not found in generic sales management packages, and describes how security dealers and integrators are using it to develop efficiency and improve sales results. You won’t find this article anywhere within the printed edition of SDM, but can read it online at www.SDMmag.com/sales-management.

In another example, “Harsh Reality,” is a feature article (page 83) that describes how harsh environments can encompass much more than bad weather and other outdoor conditions; and how to select video surveillance products that will withstand the rigors of such environments. At the end of the article, the author cites three related article with similar subject matter that can be found online at www.SDMmag.com.

 We encourage SDM’s subscribers to make a habit of checking the More Online box found throughout each print edition. You can easily locate the box by looking for the blue-and-green circular arrow: . Another advantage of the More Online box is that those links will take you directly to the website pages when clicked on from the pages of our digital edition.