It may be time to rewire the contractor/project business model with services that include recurring monthly revenue (RMR) beyond monitored security and equipment maintenance and service.
Technologies may be converging, but when it comes to the revenue models of security dealers and electronic systems contractors, the differences are vast.
A confluence of both opportunities (energy management, mobile technologies) and challenges (depressed home construction, reduced consumer spending) keeps pushing installation companies into market segments in which they’ve never gone before. One result is that more security dealers are seeking sales of residential systems that go beyond traditional security, especially those targeted for the existing home market.
The broadcaster of 30 Rock and Days of Our Lives is now offering home security. Just since last October, Xfinity from Comcast, which also owns NBC Universal, rolled out home security and monitoring; ADT, the world’s biggest home security firm, introduced a multi-level lifestyle monitoring and control service; Verizon, one of the largest U.S. communications companies, with a recent iPhone deal and a cloud computing acquisition in hand, has its own home monitoring experiment in motion; APX Alarm Security Solutions Inc., Provo, Utah, the fifth-largest alarm monitoring company on the SDM 100, rebranded as Vivint™ and launched new products turning its focus from alarm monitoring to a focus on whole home automation and monitoring (see page 149 for more on APX’s rebrand as Vivint™). And that’s not an all-inclusive list.