Our series of 2025 security industry reflections and 2026 predictions continues with Dallan Labrum, executive vice president of sales for ProdataKey. He looks back at the biggest development in the past 12 months and what could be ahead in the sector in the future.
Dallan Labrum 2025 Security Industry Reflections and 2026 Predictions
Read on to check out Dallan Labrum’s 2025 security industry reflections and 2026 predictions. We’ll have many more predictions from others among the brightest minds in the security industry throughout the month!
Security Sales & Integration: What kind of year has 2025 been for the electronic security and physical security industries?
Dallan Labrum: 2025 has been a year of needs being met and wants being excluded. With the introduction of tariffs early in the year, we saw quite a bit of consumer uncertainty. Throughout this year, this led to a larger focus amongst end users on explicit needs, rather than wants. As such, while the industry has continued to grow, it has done so with restraint and hesitation on the part of the end users.
SSI: What has been the most important change we’ve seen this year in security?
Labrum: The most important change I’ve observed in this past year has been the increased knowledge of end users. End users are having more and more visibility into our industry and products and their growing knowledge directly reflects that.
For example: we’re seeing more demand for high-security, non-prox credentials directly from end users than ever before. This shows that they’re learning more about the technology and are better informed about exactly what they want and/or need.
SSI: Without getting into any specific vendor or particular branded solutions, 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.
Labrum: I believe software integrations are incredibly exciting. While it is extremely important for access control solutions to continue to innovate and offer great features, it’s going to be integrations that allow or disallow major growth for these platforms. Whoever can accurately predict the right partners to integrate with will be the ones who win.
SSI: What’s liable to catch some security industry dealers, installers and integrators off guard in the coming year?
Labrum: From a product point of view, I think dealers could be caught off guard by how much more cost-effective and robust cloud-based systems are going to be. As cloud-based systems become more robust, more feature-rich and integrate more effectively, there will be more fluidity in choice.
As these products become easier to install and acquire, being able to articulate your value as a dealer is imperative. Ultimately, dealers need to prepare and situate themselves as the knowledge, technique and install leaders in security.
SSI: Finish this sentence: 2026 will be remembered as the year that the security industry…
Labrum: … defines what is good for it and what is not. There are disruptors in the industry that are trying new go-to-market strategies—and I always want to reward thinking outside the box. But of the things happening in our industry, some are good for it and some are not.
In 2026, I believe we will understand and realize where the win-win-wins are and leave the rest behind. Because at the end of the day, if a manufacturer, a dealer and an end user don’t all win, then things don’t work. We need to see all levels of the security industry winning.
Click here to check out all the entries in our 2026 security industry predictions series!
