An Industry Paradigm Shift

For many months now I have been talking and writing about what I perceive to be a fundamental change happening in the security industry. This change may be more or less prominent in the various segments of our industry but it is certainly going to affect the industry as a whole. The shift is most evident when you remember back several years to when manufacturers could develop and then depend on a network of loyal dealers. Those of you that have been in our industry for more than just a few years will certainly remember when each integrator or service provided was identified by the products they offered. As a dealer you were known as “a Lenel house” or “an AMAG dealer” or some other way to identify the manufacturers with whom you had formed alliances. Gradually these alliances started to fade as service providers began to take on a second, then a third, and eventually many lines of equipment that compete with each other. There are many reasons that dealers have increased the number of lines they carry, and one could argue that the manufacturers brought this on themselves by trying to put too many dealers in a specific geographic location, but the fact remains that loyalty to any one manufacturer is mostly a thing of the past. Many dealers now extol the virtues of having access to as many lines of equipment as they can get, and still maintain well trained install and service departments.

The paradigm shift then takes place, from the manufacturer’s perspective, in how they get their products to the end user. More and more I am seeing manufacturers that feel it is necessary to reach around the service provider and market their products directly to the end user. They still need dealers and integrators to install and service their equipment, but they feel more comfortable pulling the business through to the dealer in a scenario that gives them much more control over what equipment is finally installed – theirs!

Service providers, on the other hand, find this new path to market to be troubling and yet an answer to their long ignored request. Dealers have, for as long as their have been dealers, asked and harangued manufactures to bring them leads. What they wanted was a qualified target for the manufacturer’s equipment, not necessarily an already “sold” end user client that has his mind made up and has a close relationship with the manufacturer. This close relationship makes the dealer nervous because it takes control of the sales process out of his hands. He feels relegated to the role of a hired installer as his position as “owner” of the long term relationship erodes.

It would be an interesting dialog to hear from both manufacturers and service providers on this subject. I’m sure the issues are much more complex than I have outlined here and the view from each side is certainly different from the other.

Let’s hear your point of view!