The security industry looks to the SDM 100 — a group of 100 of the largest security companies ranked by their recurring monthly revenue — as a wellspring of industry trends and operational best practices.  So, which manufacturers and distributors are behind the SDM 100, supporting them with the products, solutions and services that have helped make them successful?

SDM asked each of the 2014 SDM 100 companies to disclose the top three manufacturers and top three distributors that earn their business, based on volume purchased. The resulting lists, below, reveal that the largest security companies in the installation and monitoring channel rely on a wide variety of suppliers. These lists demonstrate not only diversity in the technology they sell, but also demonstrate that security companies are capitalizing on trends in home automation, interactive services, alarm communications, and more.

 These brand-usage lists were compiled from the 2014 SDM 100 Report. Earlier this year, SDM 100 companies were instructed to list their top three suppliers (both manufacturers and distributors) in order of volume purchased from them. Of the 100 companies ranked on the SDM 100, 86 of them provided this information. SDM combined all of their responses, and ranked the manufacturers and distributors by the number of mentions each received, with the manufacturer or distributor receiving the greatest number of mentions listed first, and so on. After the top 14 manufacturers and top 9 distributors, mentions were distributed equally among a broad number of suppliers and therefore, are unable to be listed here.