If the word “change” isn’t part of your security industry business plan this year, you’d better rethink it. SDM’s 2017 Security Industry Forecast Study showed that two-thirds (67 percent) of participating security dealers and security integrators increased their total annual revenues in 2016, and their average increase was 16 percent — a sizeable, but not unreachable growth rate. Roughly one-third (32 percent) stayed flat. But one area in which bigger change was substantiated was in recurring monthly revenue (RMR) measured by the study. More than eight in 10 security dealers and security integrators (83 percent) said their RMR rose in 2016 — by as much as 64 percent on average.

Anecdotally, there never has been such emphasis placed on growing RMR — but in 2017 it could materialize in some unusual ways. This month’s cover subject, John Campau, president and CEO of Comtronics, Jackson, Mich., looks at both traditional and non-traditional products and services for driving RMR.