I'm reporting from the Epic Hotel in Miami on the eve of what is sure to be an epic networking, educational, and pleasurable adventure over the next three days. I'm here to cover Axis Communications' A&E Technology Summit 2012, the fifth annual for the company. This event is designed to provide information to consultants and engineers who design and specify network video surveillance solutions. The program is being led by Jack Meltzer, A&E and consultant program manager at Axis Communications.
As with anything challenging, there are things to be gained. In security in 2012, it’s going to be addressing the ‘bright spots’ or opportunities that present themselves during this slow recovery.
Flat is a four-letter word when it comes to the economic performance of the security installation channel in 2011. Despite predictions last year for a meager, yet optimistic 1 percent uptick in 2011, expectations did not materialize and total industry revenue neither grew nor fell — keeping at $43.9 billion. Perhaps because of this, integrators and security dealers are now ultra cautious, offering flat projections for 2012.
Traditionally, security dealers and electronic systems contractors (ESCs) have operated in different circles, and there hasn’t been much cross-selling of systems that are germane to each industry.
In 2010, there were an estimated 2,159,878 burglaries — a decrease of 2.0 percent when compared with 2009 data, according to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Federal Bureau of Investigation in its “Uniform Crime Reports: Crime in the United States 2010,” released in September of this year. It’s just one data point of many that comprise a trend of diminishing crime in general.
Leadership in the industry includes recognizing trends like the convergence between logical and physical security, an area of innovation where Diebold Security leads the charge. It’s been an honor every year since 2004 for SDM’s editors to select one company as our Systems Integrator of the Year. But with that honor comes responsibility — the responsibility of leadership. One of the distinguishing qualities SDM looks for in naming a Systems Integrator of the Year is having the courage to lead the industry through innovation.
Call it ambulance-chasing if you’d like, but I think some of SDM’s fine readers should be following Leigh and Leslie around the country with a demo kit and a monitoring contract. As they say in the flea market business, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
Even though the Chicago White Sox unfortunately didn't bring much to their game against the Cleveland Indians tonight, Underwriters Laboratories did! UL sponsored tonight's annual “Police & Fire Night"at the game, which the Sox lost 4 to 1 to the American League's Central Division second-place Indians.
The hotter the fire the harder the steel, some say. Tough times often forge resilient businesses with unexpected outcomes — demonstrated by the Top Systems Integrators who turned last year’s challenges into opportunities to retool their offerings. “We are most proud of our ability to getter better every year despite market conditions,” says No. 6 ranked Johnson Controls Inc.
It’s a Sunday close to press time and I’m watching one of my favorite television shows, CBS Sunday Morning. One of the segments catches my attention; it’s about the job market seemingly coming to a stall, with first-time unemployment claims having exceeded 400,000 for 11 consecutive weeks (as of late June). A CBS Sunday Morning journalist interviews economist Lakshman Achuthan of the Economic Cycle Research Institute about why this is happening.
How to stay at the top of your game? Stay attuned to change, specifically to game changer technology platforms, including the ones discussed in this article, that are poised to take security from ‘what it is’ to ‘what it will be.’ Almost everyone has heard a version of Isaac Asimov’s famous quote, “The only constant is change,” which is a translated version of a quote by Heraclitus, a 500 B.C. Greek philosopher.