2025 Security Industry Predictions: Scott Goldfine, Elite Interactive Solutions
Former SSI editor-in-chief and longtime Between Us Pros columnist Scott Goldfine shares his predictions for the security industry in 2025.
Today’s prognosticator in our ongoing 2025 Security Industry Predictions series is a familiar name to Security Sales & Integration readers: former longtime editor-in-chief Scott Goldfine, who still writes his Between Us Pros column for us while working as marketing director for Elite Interactive Solutions.
Security Sales & Integration: Without getting into any specific vendors or branded solutions, what technology category or solution area do you see as 2025’s ripest, most profitable growth opportunity for security dealers, installers and integrators? Explain your reasoning.
Scott Goldfine: While interactive video combined with audio has had an industry presence the past couple of decades, it has only been the past couple of years that it has come of age with remote guarding maturing as a viable offering.
Thanks to several years of trial and error to perfect this service, along with technology finally catching up to the vision and dream of true, proactive crime prevention, rather than reactive measures, this approach is going to increasingly become the norm vs. the exception.
The capability to leverage technology like video analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to eliminate noise and false alarms such that monitoring operators never miss an event while executing live audio voice intervention is a game-changer with vast industry implications and opportunities for all.
Knowing what the industry can now deliver, anything less will become unacceptable to end users and should also be to conscientious security solution providers as well.
In addition, this is a solution that brings new opportunities to dealer/integrator customers or prospects that use human guards. They can now demonstrate that today’s remote video monitoring technology is more effective, efficient and cost-effective than guards – making it the ideal augmentation or replacement.
This offering can also bring dealers/integrators some of the highest recurring monthly revenue (RMR) our industry has seen.
SSI: These days, we’re all hearing a lot about the cloud migration, AI/machine learning, crime deterrence vs. crime reactiveness, etc. Which of these “hot topics” do you think is overplayed? Which ones do you think will truly transform the practice of security integration in the coming years?
Goldfine: All three mentioned are going to be transformative to the industry. Cloud is the farthest along in terms of adoption due to its myriad advantages spanning flexibility, scalability and cost. Vendor offerings and end-user familiarity and comfort are also the farthest along with cloud.
That said, loud plays a large role in the migration to crime prevention away from both deterrence and reactiveness, and so too will in the inevitable rise of AI/machine learning in security platforms and solutions. The loud is where much of that technology and human interaction with it will live and facilitate the rise in SaaS topologies, in combination with evermore sophisticated edge devices.
What demands the most caution here is AI/machine learning. Although it is advancing at an unprecedented pace, it is the least understood and most overhyped from a security industry standpoint.
Some are looking at it as a panacea when in fact it is merely another tool (albeit a potentially powerful one) that remains reliant upon the proper experience, expertise and application to optimize desirable outcomes. AI is not a silver bullet.
Although not mentioned, I believe mobile credentialing will continue to transform the access control business. Of course, regarding any networked technologies and solutions, at both the device and platform level, robust cybersecurity hygiene must remain at the forefront to secure the security.
SSI: On the business and operations side, which single factor (e.g., interest rates, talent-related issues, geopolitical stressors) poses the biggest challenge for the security industry right now? How can business owners mitigate their downside risk?
Goldfine: Finding talent, especially in installation, service and sales, remains the primary business operations challenge for most dealers and integrators.
Rather than subside, this area has intensified due to the security industry’s low profile and awareness compared to other technology- and service-centric fields along with the fact that much of our legacy products and systems are antiquated, foreign and unappealing to young people.
This is changing to some degree as physical security continues to become more IT-based and part of the IoT ecosystem, thereby becoming more appealing to and creating a higher comfort level for young people.
In addition, industry trade associations like ESA (Electronic Security Association) and SIA (Security Industry Association) have been ramping up initiatives and programs to raise awareness and cultivate career paths. On the other hand, the competition among providers for experienced service and sales personnel grows ever more intense – making it a sellers’ market so to speak.
One other major challenge for the industry is keeping up with new technology on the provider side, and then also educating and managing expectations on the end user side.
SSI: What’s getting better about the security industry these days? What seems to be getting worse and worse?
Goldfine: Two things jump to mind. One was touched on above and that is too many providers acting like ostriches with their heads buried in the sand oblivious to what is happening around them or defiantly acting like children with their hands on their ears shouting, “LA LA LA LA LA!” where it comes to adopting newer technologies and services.
In large part due to its very nature of protecting lives and property, the security industry has taken a conservative approach to emerging technology. Perhaps that used to be more understandable and acceptable, but the speed of technological advancement is accelerating and end users are much more familiar with the capabilities and convenience of what that can now bring them.
The other thought that comes to mind is the loss of culture, quality and innovation of many small to mid-sized security companies that get rolled up into larger entities. This has long been an issue but quickened in more recent years and amid the pandemic.
A handful of operators get and respect this challenge by executing extreme care but many fail to take to heart the lessons learned by so many in this industry that there is a lot more to a successful business than the bottom line and delivering investment capital returns. Assuming reasonable profitability, the noble mission of security ultimately supersedes all of that.
SSI: What’s liable to catch some security dealers, installers and integrators off guard in the coming year?
Goldfine: The need to remain laser-focused on mission, solution and markets, and to partner up with the right folks to extend offerings or territories that allow the business to keep pace with the marketplace while not losing sight of core competencies.
Be nimble, adaptable and open to expansion, but only sensibly when it will not potentially compromise existing areas of strength. In such cases, look outward for the right partners that already possess those demonstrated abilities.
For example, while many dealers and integrators may covet the crime prevention and high RMR that remote guarding can bring, in most cases it would be impractical to attempt to go at it alone as an in-house offering. Instead, partner with a reputable third-party provider with the requisite state-of-the-art command center, highly trained operators and established track record of success.
SSI: What’s the single most pressing issue that professionals in the security industry should look to tackle right now?
Goldfine: Being a true partner to law enforcement through the deployment of technologies and practices proven to eliminate false alarms, assist in police response and arrests, and help officers respond more safely by acting as their eyewitness to active crimes.
In the face of rising crime and dwindling resources, this private-public partnership has never been more critical. This is a call our industry can answer should it choose to do so.
SSI: Finish this sentence: 2025 will be remembered as the year that the security industry…
Goldfine: … turned the corner from reactive, after-the-fact systems and response to true, proactive real-time crime prevention. It will be the year of remote video monitoring and guarding. This opportunity is right in front of us and given its enormous implications cannot be overhyped.
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