Laura Stepanek Articles

Striving for the Gold Medal in Cybersecurity

It takes guts for traditional security integrators to face the fact that they must become cyber experts. But without question they need a goal, or they will risk falling short of winning their clients’ business.

Laura Stepanek

September 1, 2016

It’s been a fun couple of weeks in August. At the time of this writing, the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro are in full swing.

Book Recommendations From the Security Industry

Check out these books, written by professionals in the security industry, and add them to your fall reading list.

Laura Stepanek

August 2, 2016

Lately I’ve been exposed to several books, which have been published over the past year or so, about some unique aspect of security — I wanted to share them with you.

Affiliated Monitoring’s Catalyst Conference Talks High-Level Sales & Marketing in PERS Industry

Laura Stepanek

July 27, 2016

A conference held this spring on the topic of sales and marketing in the PERS business was aptly named Catalyst ’16, by its host, Affiliated Monitoring, Union, N.J.

Q&A With Liberty Security’s Russell Keddie Helping People Thrive

Keddie describes Edmonton-based Liberty Security as a company that stays true to its value of ‘people before profits.’

Laura Stepanek

July 22, 2016

Russell Keddie is a managing partner at Liberty Security who believes empowering the customer is a key to success.

SDM 2016 Top Systems Integrators Report: Expanding Their Scope of Services

Security systems integrators are taking on a much greater role in our connected world through their offerings of cybersecurity and added network services, as evidenced by the 21st annual Top Systems Integrators Report.

Laura Stepanek

July 7, 2016

Security systems integrators lauded the state of the market in 2015, yet their revenue was down 1 percent overall and among those integrators with which a year-to-year comparison could be made, a significant number — 34 of 82 companies — reported decreased North American systems integration revenue.

Most Popular Brands Among the 2016 SDM 100

Which suppliers do the largest security dealers use? This SDM 100 brand-usage report lists the top 13 manufacturers and top nine distributors that earn the business of the top security companies in the installation and monitoring channel.

Laura Stepanek

June 1, 2016

The security industry looks to the SDM 100 — a report of 100 of the top security companies ranked by their recurring monthly revenue (RMR) — as a wellspring of industry trends and operational best practices.

How Fire Alarm Technology Is Evolving

This issue offers an in-depth look at how fire alarm hardware is evolving and beginning to adopt the more mainstream technologies such as touchscreens, apps and the cloud.

Laura Stepanek

June 1, 2016

There are two major articles in this issue of SDM that stand out for the positive news they offer the industry and, perhaps more importantly, for conveying the idea that fire alarm technology is indeed starting to change — and that is welcome news.

Reminiscing On 25 Years Of The SDM 100

Laura Stepanek

May 13, 2016

It’s used in many different ways by different people, but the primary objective of the SDM 100 remains the same after 25 years: to measure consumer dollars gained by alarm companies, in order to present an account of the size of the market captured by the 100 largest security providers.

2016 SDM 100: Home Run

The 2016 SDM 100, a group of the top security companies ranked by RMR, continues to knock the cover off the ball when it comes to selling into both residential and non-residential markets, providing hosted and managed services, and monitoring.

Laura Stepanek

May 5, 2016

In 2015 we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the SDM 100 and honored eight companies for being ranked on the first SDM 100 Report in 1991 and all of the reports thereafter.