Technology changes, major shifts in the market and evolving customer expectations bring a wealth of opportunity the commercial and residential security markets.
2017 was a good year for the economy. The housing bubble has almost entirely recovered; the stock market saw record gains; and new construction was on the rise. In November, single family home building surged to a 10-year high, according to the Commerce Department, while ConstructConnect reports commercial construction enjoyed modest gains. All of these elements are highly favorable to the security industry — and manufacturers, dealers and integrators definitely felt the positive impact of these trends.
However, for dealers and integrators, the divide between a good year and a great one was largely dependent on several factors: what part of the market they sit in; how prepared they were to move quickly toward new technology and business models; how much pressure they felt from competition; and other factors, such as changing RMR models, the cloud, new monitoring trends and more.