CCTV Systems

We continue our 2026 predictions series with Brandon Niles, vice president  of 2021 and 2022  SSI  Installer of the Year  Acadian Total Security. We shared Niles’ 2025 reflections on the security industry last month. Brandon Niles 2026 Security Industry Predictions Read on to check out Brandon Niles’ 2026 security industry predictions. We’ll have many more predictions from others among the brightest minds in the security industry throughout the month! Security Sales & Integration: What technology category or solution area do you see as 2026’s ripest, most profitable growth opportunity for security dealers, installers and integrators? Explain your reasoning.  Brandon Niles: I believe the most significant growth opportunity for security dealers and integrators in 2026 lies in the expansion of video surveillance-as-a-service (VSaaS) and advanced artificial intelligence (AI) video analytics, particularly those focused on operational intelligence and regu...

Security Sales & Integration announces the entry period for the 2026 Supplier Stellar Service Awards is now open. This program celebrates those companies that deliver the highest levels of service and support to the installing dealer and integrator community. The deadline to enter is Friday, Feb. 20. “The SSI Supplier Stellar Service Awards are very unique in that they don’t focus on products, technologies and innovation in the traditional sense,” says Dan Ferrisi, group director of content + editorial, industrial + tech, for Emerald. “Instead, they focus on the people who power the industry’s leading manufacturers, distributors and central stations. “This program is about customer service, training programs, technical support, shipping and product availability, integrator-friendly policies and terms, and so much more. The Supplier Stellar Service Awards are our way of empowering installers, dealers and integrators to thank the suppliers that enable them to shine out in the ...

We continue our series of 2026 security industry predictions with Barry Norton, fellow at Milestone Systems. He looks ahead to 2026 and beyond to predict what changes could be afoot. Barry Norton 2026 Security Industry Predictions Read on to check out Barry Norton’s 2026 security industry predictions. We’ll have many more predictions from others among the brightest minds in the security industry throughout the month! Security Sales & Integration: What technology category or solution area do you see as 2026’s ripest, most profitable growth opportunity for security dealers, installers and integrators? Explain your reasoning. Barry Norton: The real opportunity in 2026 lies not in any single technology but in the convergence of intelligent systems working together as a connected ecosystem. Artificial intelligence agents, digital twins and smart cameras and sensors, to name a few, are most powerful when deployed through open platform architectures that allow them to share contex...

We continue our Best Advice Q&A series with Fred Voccola, chairman and chief executive officer at Simpro Group. He offers up the best advice he’s ever gotten, how he elevates security industry newcomers and who inspires him most. Security Sales & Integration: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received? Fred Voccola: The best advice I ever got wasn’t something someone said to me. It was something I watched —watching the most innovative, intelligent person I’ve ever met: my father. The lesson I learned from him was simple: always innovate. Find a real problem that affects a lot of people or businesses and figure out how to make it better. That’s the core definition of innovation: incremental improvement that creates massive impact. He never used fancy words or frameworks. He just solved big problems and made life easier for millions of people. He did it twice in a major way: Electronic toll collection (what became EZ Pass). He saw people wasting hours in ...

For years, SEO was treated like a box to check. Build a website, add some keywords, maybe publish a blog or two…and move on. That mindset no longer works for AV and security dealers who want to be found online. AI-powered search hasn’t replaced SEO; it’s exposed who was only doing it halfway. Dealers who treated SEO as a one-time task are quietly disappearing from view, while those who’ve built real authority are showing up everywhere buyers look. At One Firefly , we call this shift Search Everywhere Optimization: the art of building a digital presence that earns trust across every discovery channel, including traditional Google search, AI summaries, industry directories, social algorithms, and referral validation. It’s not about chasing algorithms. It’s about being recognized as the expert everywhere your next client might look. Today’s buyers don’t follow a straight path from Google to your website. That’s the fundamental change dealers need to understand: visibility is no long...

Our first Best Advice Q&A of 2026 comes from Veronica Moturi, senior vice president of customer experience at Brinks Home. She shares the best advice she’s ever gotten, how she helps to elevate the next generation of the security industry and the person whose advice carries the most weight. Security Sales & Integration:  What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received? Veronica Moturi: “The expectation you set for your team should match the one you hold for yourself.” I’ve always taken that to mean: never ask your team to do something you wouldn’t do yourself. Roll up your sleeves, get in the trenches and work alongside them. That shared effort is what builds trust and real success. SSI:  What advice would you give to those looking to achieve success in the security industry? Moturi: You don’t have to come in as a security expert. What matters most is passion; caring about the customer experience and being committed to doing things the right way. Technical ...

DALLAS — The Foundation for Advancing Security Talent  ( FAST ) has named eight new members to its board of directors , a group drawn from the membership of the Security Industry Association (SIA), the Electronic Security Association (ESA) and PSA, according to a joint announcement. The FAST board of directors “defines and refines FAST’s strategic plan as well as the foundation’s annual goals,” the announcement says. The newly appointed FAST board members, named by SIA, ESA and PSA, are: Matt Barnette  has been president and CEO of PSA since 2021 and is a seasoned veteran in the physical security industry with more than 30 years of experience in management and executive roles, including previously serving as president of Mercury Security and of AMAG Technology. Taylor Carr  is president of Allied Universal Technology Services, one of the largest security systems integrators in the United States, and has more than 25 years of executive leadership and operational exper...