This was an excellent foreshadowing of some of the later afternoon discussion.

But first up after a short networking break was the keynote speaker. This year it was Dan Bresingham, CEO of Everon, the recently renamed spun-off integration division of ADT. Bresingham explained how the new name was suggested by an employee and just seemed to fit the company’s vision. “We have had a lot of fun with the new name and coming up with slogans,” he said. He also teased news that the company will be closing its 6th deal next month. For more on this transition, listen to this recent SDM Podcast with Everon Chief Marketing Officer Beth Tarnoff.

This year, Barnes Buchanan chose to highlight a technology for its afternoon session — in this case video monitoring, featuring company CEOs Daniel Forrest of EyeForce, Chris Brown of Immix and Markus Scott of EyeQ Monitoring talking about the opportunity video monitoring presents security dealers and integrators as well as some of the do’s and don’ts.

“If you are not doing video monitoring today and you have 1,000 cameras you have hung on walls all over the area, you are really missing some good RMR,” Brown told attendees.

As has become tradition, the first day closed out with the official presentation of the 2023 SDM Dealer of the Year trophy to PEAK Alarm.

But as anyone who has attended a Barnes Buchanan conference knows, the highlight of the event — and the reason the room is always full at 8:30 a.m. the day after the included cocktail hour and dinner — is Mike Barnes' annual presentation.

In addition to giving attendees the good news about last year’s performance, Barnes walked through an in-depth look at the numbers, as well touching on both threats and opportunities, and doing his best to “predict” for next year.

“Economists last year were sure we were headed into a recession,” Barnes said. “Most of us thought 2023 was likely to be a flattish kind of year — still growth, but flat. Boy, were we wrong. And that is a good thing. What ended up happening is we had an absolutely fabulous year in 2023.”

All indications Barnes pointed to look good for the security industry, even in uncertain times. While the security industry did retract in 2020 — due to installation revenue — Barnes noted that it just retreated back to the year before COVID, which is what happened during the great recession as well. “That is the beauty of this industry; not many industries can claim that,” Barnes noted. “This really speaks to the resilience of the security industry and its super attractive dynamic.”

Since that time the industry has been tracking at about 5 percent growth each year. Looking at more specifics from last year: installation was up 9 percent and monitoring up 5 percent. “Everything is boding well for the industry,” he said.

When he spoke at last year’s conference, Barnes strongly advised security dealers and integrators to consider raising prices — including on monitoring — to combat inflation. This year, he was pleased to report that many did so, and these numbers reflect that.

“A lot of the industry really did a good job in our estimation of raising prices; The industry was right to do that,” Barnes said. “Everybody saw inflation coming and everyone cringes at price increases. Inflation is painful. But the industry leaned in hard. We had clients that raised prices 5 or 8 percent, with very little fallout. That really helped on margins, big time.”

Looking at those margins, Barnes noted that margins on monitoring services were up — 50.9 percent in 2023 versus 50.8 percent in 2022. While that may not sound like much, margins have been slowly declining for almost a decade from a high of 54.3 percent in 2015.

“This is huge,” Barnes said, further explaining: “A lot of the growth started to come from additional services like Alarm.com. They were nice add-ons but if you didn’t mark them up to a 54 percent margin or higher they would drag that margin down. In 2023 for the first time we saw that number go up very slightly. This is real. I think it is predominantly because of price increases.”

The question, Barnes said, is will it be sustained? Just as he did last year, he put a word of advice out there for security dealers and integrators: “A skillset the industry needs is how to raise prices on services. You guys provide great services, so charge for it.”

In more good news, Barnes said the RMR creation multiple is down, which is “astoundingly wonderful.” That multiple fell from 28.6x to 27.7x. “This is one of the biggest drops we have seen in a while, and a lot of it has to do with those price increases.”

On the topic of technology opportunities, Barnes circled back to the previous day’s highlighting of video monitoring as a key opportunity.

“The larger commercial segment is up and accelerating,” Barnes said. “The hot space is the video segment. There is no question this is the place the industry is really moving hard towards and where the future lies. … Imaging, AI, it is amazing what the opportunities are for this segment. Our best guess is 15 percent growth.”

Barnes continued, “Every player has to develop some skills around [video monitoring] because if not, customers will go to specialty providers. … We think video’s time has come. It is the next explosive component of the industry.”

Every year, Barnes puts together a slideshow that includes arrows from red to green in terms of threats. Video is the big opportunity coming out of Barnes Buchanan. But what are the possible threats?

Not surprisingly, first up was inflation. Barnes still puts this in the “orange” between high (red) and low (green), but it is down from the previous year. “Even though it came down a bit, there are a lot of people managing companies today that are young enough they are not familiar with a high inflation economy,” Barnes said.

Capital shortage is the next threat, which is in the low moderate range, said Joe Thompson of Barnes Associates. “Lenders are still relatively conservative and interest costs are way up.”

High interest rates mean the interest cost on debt rose 62 percent, Thompson said. This is one of the reasons a healthy number of security companies worked to get debt-free last year.

For those still paying on debt or considering getting loans for transactions, Thompson gave some hope that interest rates are expected to be cut this year. However, he added: “For those borrowing, don’t expect interest rates to go higher, but don’t put confidence in them going down significantly and fast.”

The last threat, as was the case last year, was the highest: operating complexity, which is in the orange/red and climbing.

“This is the single biggest threat to the average company operating in this space,” Barnes said. “It speaks to the consolidation in the industry. A lot of company owners are saying, ‘I’m good at what I do; I had a good run, but this is just too much, too fast.”

Industry consolidation has been happening for years, Barnes added, but not as fast as many assume. “Our prediction is we will stay fragmented for a time but slowly do more consolidation.”

For those looking to buy or sell, the market is still vigorous, Barnes said. But with the higher interest rates, there has definitely been some softening, with fewer transactions. On the positive side, there are more buyers and more money — albeit at a higher price tag — and all the operating metrics are really strong.

So what about that infamous prediction Barnes doesn’t like doing? This year he played it fairly safe: “Generally speaking, industry-specific there is nothing materially changing from 2023. There is nothing fundamentally weird right now. The market will trade mostly based on the same factors as last year, which include higher interest rates, continued inflation and continued labor and supply chain issues.”

Is he correct? Check in next year to see. — By SDM Editor-in-Chief Karyn Hodgson //

42%

“Genetec is collectively known as the ‘wrecking crew,’” Elvish said. “Creative destruction is what gets us out of bed in the morning. … That is part of what gets us excited as a company.” Elvish showed a slide from Omdia demonstrating how Genetec has moved from No. 10 in the marketplace in 2016 to No. 2 by 2022 for both access control and ALPR solutions, and has been ranked No. 1 in video since 2017.

“What these numbers show is a change in mindset,” he said. “Genetec came to market with a unique selling prospect for unification, not integration. We were not bolting on things, we were putting it into a single pane of glass. … As we were telling that story, [customers] first knew us as a video company. Then they started using our access control, which was built into one system and very attractive.”

But no matter how elegant the solution, there is a challenge faced by both manufacturers and integrators in the security space, Elvish said: the consumption gap. “This is the gap between “the cool stuff we build” and “stuff that gets used,” he explained. “Why is this a concern? Because the more people recognize the value of what we do at Genetec, the more sticky it becomes,” he said.

Elvish also took attendees through the results of the company’s latest survey, the State of Physical Security 2024, released in November 2023. This report was based on responses from 5,500 end users and channel partners — up from just 500 responses the first year the company produced the report in 2020.

“The good news is our integration partners are seeing OpEx budgets continue to rise; the bad news is that cyber threats are continuing to increase,” Elvish explained, noting that 31 percent of end users indicated their organization was targeted by cybercriminals in 2023.

“This is highly concerning, but it is something we have known for a long time and one of the challenges we face,” Elvish said. “We call it the security of security — the IT security of physical security.” On a positive note, he said more channel partners are taking action on cybersecurity, but there is still more work to be done.

Another highlight of the study, Elvish explained, was the numbers on cloud adoption: “What is happening with the channel partners is that 39 percent are now leading with cloud-based; 52 percent offer it and 74 percent anticipate offering it. This is a bigger change than from coaxial to IP.”

What’s more, he added, “We are seeing cloud across every size company. The biggest demand is amongst the larger customers. It is part of a bigger change going on in the market.”

In closing his portion of the presentation, Elvish highlighted one more number. “When I was reviewing the data from this report, this really stood out: 15 percent already store their video footage both locally and the cloud, compared to just 4 percent the previous year. That is a 275 percent increase in just one year.”

Next up, Michel Chalouhi, vice president of sales, global, talked more on the importance to Genetec of its channel partners, particularly how the company would like to add “ease” to the integrator’s lives and projects.

“A lot of our partners are trying to find ways to grow, and 52 percent are looking in that cloud direction,” Chalouhi said. “The integrator is as much our customer as the end users. That is who we need to scale to and how we get to the next stage of our mission. It is very important for us to understand the way they procure, install and maintain the product. We want to make it easy to do business with Genetec from both the end user and channel partner perspective.”

All of this was the wind up to the big reveal of the day: an under-wraps preview of Genetec’s new Security Center SaaS, which was formally unveiled February 21, and will be fully rolled out at ISC West. For more on this see this month's Technology Solutions & Skills department.

Next up was what is always a highlight of these press summits: the fireside chat with Genetec founder, president and CEO, Pierre Racz, which as usual included a wide-ranging variety of topics. He started by bringing the conversation back to that concept of “shibumi,” explaining that this new offering was designed with that concept in mind.

“Shibumi is a Japanese aesthetic philosophy that means understated beauty,” Racz said.

He also touched on one of his favorite love-to-hate topics: AI — which as anyone who has heard Racz speak on this topic before will know he says stands for “absolute ignorance.”

Racz gave an example of this called “giraffing,” which is based on the idea that AI thinks any picture of Africa should have a giraffe in it. “If you take a picture of anything in Africa and ask AI how many giraffes are in it there will always be a number because it is trained on giraffes. There is bias. … But if you let the human supply the imagination and creativity you can do great things.” Racz calls this “IA” or “intelligent automation.”

Racz also touched on the topic of cybersecurity aspect of Genetec’s product offerings, which are also designed in a way to be “easy” and help ensure compliance.

“We are making it hard for our customers to do that wrong thing,” Racz said. “We no longer have default passwords. We generate a random one, and you have to go in and change it.”

This is one example, he said, of how the company is designing solutions that will get both integrators and end users to “up their game” when it comes to cybersecurity.

This led to the next presentation, which was a frightening look into hacker-land and why initiatives like this are important.

Vincent De Noiret, application security program manager, detailed some of the latest gadgets from the most recent Black Hat conventions, such as the Flipper Zero, which can copy a hotel or other access control card in seconds — which he demonstrated in a video he took that morning from the hotel.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent showing off the features of the Genetec SOC at the experience center as well as a presentation going into more detail on the new offering.

Judging from the presentations and focus on cloud, cybersecurity and making products that are elegant, simplistic and easy to sell, install, maintain and use, Genetec’s newest offering seeks to meld the concept of “shibumi” with the “easy button” — with hopefully no giraffes in sight, unless they are really there. — By SDM Editor-in-Chief Karyn Hodgson //

CRIMPCO was founded in 1968 by Bob Jolson, who realized his knack for selling businesses panic button systems. Jolson expanded to include security systems, access control, video surveillance, video monitoring and fire alarms for customers from Baltimore and Washington D.C., to Northern Virginia and Southern Pennsylvania.

From the beginning, CRIMPCO has been a family business, as Jolson started CRIMPCO with his father, Marv Jolson, and expanded with sons Todd and Ryan Jolson. In addition, partners John Cromwell and Chris Graham, who joined the company in 1982 and 1992 respectively, have been instrumental in the company’s growth and success.

“When you are hired at CRIMPCO, you are a member of the family,” said Bob Jolson. “While weighing the options of the next step for our company, our team’s future was top-of-mind. I’m confident that joining Pye-Barker is the best choice for them, our family and our customers.”

“Like Pye-Barker, CRIMPCO and the Jolsons recognize the two keys to success: team and customers,” said Pye-Barker CEO Bart Proctor. “Fostering a family-like, supportive company culture while upholding the highest standards of customer service has fueled CRIMPCO's success and made them a great addition to our family.”

CRIMPCO’s employees will continue to serve customers in the region.

The transaction was coordinated by Philip Gardner, president of B Safe, which merged with Pye-Barker Fire & Safety in 2022. Barry Epstein of Vertex Capital represented CRIMPCO in the transaction.

Pye-Barker Fire & Safety provides complete fire protection and security systems nationwide. With more than 200 locations and 6,000 team members nationwide, the ranks No. 9 on the 2023 SDM 100. //

Vallejo is the second largest city in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, with a population of around 126,000 and a land area of more than 30 square miles. Interim Police Chief Jason Ta advocated limiting alarm call responses to address declining staffing levels that prompted the city to declare a state of emergency last year.

At the February 13 council meeting, Ta proposed amendments to city law that would model the city of Fontana’s alarm ordinance, which requires verification that a crime is in progress by an eyewitness, an alarm system video feed or by multiple alarm activations at a commercial complex or within a residence.

The ordinance does not require verification for any alarm that is manually triggered, such as those designed for medical emergencies, the Vallejo Sun reported.

According to a city analysis conducted in 2022, it was discovered that 98 percent of alarm call events in Vallejo were determined to be false alarms. In 2022, the department responded to 3,627 alarm calls, averaging 10 calls per day, with an average of 23 minutes spent on each call.

Ta cited studies that show officer hours spent on alarm calls went from 103 hours a month in 2020 to 153 hours a month in 2023. He said that the verification requirements would allow the department to divert 148 hours of officer time per month to other police responses.

City Attorney Veronica Nebb recommended the city include a requirement to review the policy after at least one year of data is collected, the Vallejo Sun reported. //

“Welcoming the CSC team to our organization proves we’re delivering on our promise to serve our customers more holistically across markets and particularly in the banking security industry,” said Everon CEO Dan Bresingham. “With CSC’s decades-long experience, particularly in the banking and financial sector, we’re adding critical expertise to our organization and enhancing the quality and depth of service we can provide across the New England area.”

Owned by Bob and Kim Fortin, CSC has established itself in the past three decades as a leading provider of ATM and ITM hardware maintenance and banking security solutions across the New England region. With offices in Durham, Conn., and Goffstown, N.H., the organization is focused on providing best-in-class services and comprehensive, cost-effective solutions to the banking and financial industry.

“At CSC, we’ve always prioritized being a partner over a service vendor to our clients. It’s that mentality that’s led to our longstanding success,” said CSC CEO Bob Fortin. “In joining Everon, we recognize that we’ll continue to be part of an organization that shares that customer-driven mindset and values partnership above all else. This is an exciting move for us, and we’re looking forward to our future with Everon.”

Everon was built over the last decade by some of the most trusted names in commercial security. In that time, teams remained focused on providing comprehensive, scalable solutions to address the unique needs of mid-market, national and large-scale organizations, and established a new industry standard for customer-driven service excellence and delivery. With GTCR’s acquisition of ADT Commercial in October 2023, Everon has emerged as an innovator and service excellence champion protecting commercial people, property, and assets across industries.

Everon was built over the past decade by some of the most trusted names in commercial security. The company supports more than 300,000 customer locations and staffs over 5,000 employees, including 2,300 technicians, across more than 100 branches. //

Silent Sentinel’s rugged, thermal cameras offer clear visibility in the complex and extreme environments associated with military, aviation, maritime and critical infrastructure, according to an announcement. Equipped with highly accurate detection capabilities, Silent Sentinel’s cameras are said to identify anomalies from up to 20 miles away (30 km) to extend the perimeter of security and support a faster, more informed response.

“Long-range cameras enable advanced insights that can protect individuals and infrastructure,” said Motorola Solutions CTO Mahesh Saptharishi. “With Silent Sentinel, we’re broadening our video security portfolio to help secure and support essential operations and industries around the world.”

The acquisition is said to complement Motorola Solutions’ portfolio of fixed video cameras, expanding its footprint with government and critical infrastructure customers and strengthening its position as a global leader in end-to-end video security solutions.

“On behalf of the Silent Sentinel team, we’re excited to join Motorola Solutions,” said Paul Elsey, managing director, Silent Sentinel. “We look forward to building upon Motorola Solutions’ industry-leading portfolio, offering advanced video security solutions that support our customers in the most challenging environments.” //

The company will continue to operate under the Lanmor name and customer contacts will remain unchanged as a result of the acquisition, according to an announcement.

“Lanmor is a great example of our commitment to providing customers with a fully comprehensive opening solution. We are thrilled to welcome Kip and his team to the Cook & Boardman family of companies,” said CEO David Eisner.

“Lanmor has earned customer’s respect and loyalty by providing high touch communication, unprecedented service along with dedicated project management teams and highly skilled, cross trained technicians,” noted Lanmor President Kip Cunningham. “We are excited to join Cook & Boardman. Adding our 20+ years of combined security integrator experience along with the synergies of the two businesses, Cook & Boardman will further as the nation's fastest growing providers of integrated security solutions.”

Cook & Boardman is a distributor of commercial doors, frames and hardware, electronic access control equipment and specialty (Division 10) products. Platinum Equity acquired a majority interest in Cook & Boardman in 2023. Littlejohn & Co. remains a significant minority shareholder.

Lanmor represents Cook & Boardman’s second acquisition under Platinum Equity’s ownership. The company serves non-residential and multi-family markets including the commercial, education, government, healthcare, office and hospitality sectors from more than 70 locations across 23 states and nationwide through its ecommerce portal.

The company is also one of the nation’s largest providers of integrated security solutions, including physical security, access control, wireless networking, low voltage cabling, audio/visual and managed information technology products. The Cook & Boardman Security Integration Solutions division ranked No. 8 on the 2023 SDM Top Systems Integrators Report. //

With this venture into the new market, Owen Security will rebrand in California as Owen Smart Video Solutions. The company said Owen Smart Video will be positioned to bring cutting edge technology to 1,500+ mostly commercial clients in the Greater LA area.

Elizabeth Courtney, California Alarm Association (CAA) board member/Orange County Chapter president, said, “Beacon Security selected Owen after a very long search due to alignment with the same core values of taking care of the client first. After 37 years of relationships it was important to find a company who would continue to value that.”

Justin Owen, CEO of Owen Security Solutions, said, “We are excited to venture into this new market with a concentrated focus on robust video solutions for these customers and future clients. It was too good of an opportunity to turn down coupled with the right product and service partners to go to market with. As always the best part of an acquisition are the teammates you bring on with it. We are excited to have a great team and foundation in place for future growth. This expansion embodies our commitment to deliver premium video & security solutions to our clientele.” //

“While previous efforts have sought to establish security standards for the cannabis industry, none match the comprehensive and well-organized nature of this standard,” said Tim Sutton, vice chairman of ASIS International’s Professional Standards Board (PSB) and co-chair of the technical committee for the Cannabis Security Standard’s development.

Sutton continued, “Crafted by seasoned experts in cannabis security, it stands out as the most thorough, covering the entire spectrum of security programs. Rooted in established and proven security standards, this initiative sets a new benchmark for the industry. This standard is not only needed, but anxiously anticipated by the industry.”

Members of the standard’s technical committee represent security professionals who are actively working within the industry and other related subject matter experts who not only understand security best practices but understand the importance of applying industry-recognized security risk management principles.

Aligned with the enterprise security risk management (ESRM) approach, the new standard is said to serve as an invaluable tool to safeguard cannabis organizations and their assets by taking a holistic perspective.

Key elements of ASIS International’s ANSI-approved Cannabis Security Standard include:

• Comprehensive Security Program Guidance: The standard offers a robust framework for the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of cannabis security programs. It encompasses every aspect of security risk management, ensuring a thorough and proactive approach.
• Physical Protection Systems (PPS) Requirements: Providing guidance and minimum security requirements, the standard focuses on the identification, application, and management of physical protection systems. This includes safeguarding assets such as people, property, and information associated with cannabis operations, storage, and transport.
• Exceeding Jurisdictional Compliance: In some instances, the standard surpasses the requirements mandated by local jurisdictions, demonstrating a commitment to excellence in cannabis security. This ensures that cannabis organizations adopting this standard are equipped with the highest level of protection.
• Mitigation Strategies: A key highlight of the standard is its emphasis on mitigation strategies. From threat assessment to response planning, security practitioners gain access to proactive measures that fortify the resilience of cannabis organizations against potential risks.

“In an industry evolving at a rapid pace, our standard not only meets but exceeds expectations, reflecting our commitment to advancing security practices,” said Susan Carioti, vice president, certification, Standards and Guidelines, ASIS. “This standard is a testament to our dedication to providing best-in-class solutions that fortify cannabis organizations and contribute to the overall safety of the industry.”

ASIS, in its role as an accredited Standards Developing Organization (SDO), develops standards and guidelines to serve the needs of security practitioners in today’s global environment. //

According to Brivo, the good news is that AEC practitioners have responded to this demand: 56 percent now have a process for integrating security into building design, and 41 percent are currently implementing such a process. There is also a good understanding of the need for physical security to be an integral part of design, rather than “patched-in” later, with 94 percent of AEC practitioners agreeing.

However, the report finds that reality is falling short of ambition. When responsible for security post-build, many respondents said that fixing physical security problems adds additional costs as high as 20 percent.

“Time and money spent fixing security issues post-build are a problem, but it’s the retroactive effects that can create real issues,” said Paula Balmori, director of global security design & system integrations, Brivo. “Failing to reach milestones can trigger contractual clauses that lead to damages, and clients can even end up taking legal action if delays are excessive and lead to a break of contract.”

When asked about the greatest barriers to implementing security by design, respondents cited regulations, budget constraints and design and aesthetic conflicts as the main problems they encountered, reflecting a change in priority that the industry has yet to fully grapple with.

But demands for integrated physical security in design are here to stay: 89 percent of respondents reported that security was a part of the design briefs they received, and 88 percent have seen a rise in customer demand for security integration.

“It would be madness today to design a building and leave plumbing, heating and lighting as an afterthought to be figured out later — similarly, we would not expect construction to be postponed because of issues with the planning of these key utilities,” said Balmori. “Physical security needs to be seen the same way. Too often we see sub-par solutions put in place because not enough thought was given to security at the design stage. The good news is that the industry understands this issue — now, they just need to make sure that the results match this understanding.” //