With the upcoming CAA (California Alarm Association) Winter Convention coming up, and ISC East and The Monitoring Association’s recent meetings, it’s a good time to reflect on what associations provide members. It’s easy to forget the importance of pooling resources, ideas and agendas to solve problems collectively for the good of the electronic security industry.
There are multiple associations a security company can join, from the national level to a state or local association. The value to the individual company depends on whether the issues you face have broader impacts across state lines or whether it’s a specific issue in your community. Regardless, the role of the association is to identify those critical issues and fight for you.
The collective strength of many companies carries more power than a single entity. Whether lobbying a state legislature, working to change a national standard or looking to modify a local alarm ordinance, by having a larger group of committed parties the potential for success is enhanced. We’ve found that time and again, when companies bound together their influence grows.
At SIAC, we keep a broad national perspective. But our battles are often local or at the statewide level. When we provide resources, educational and informational materials to help alarm industry leadership, it is with deep and long-term experience handling alarm management issues in many different contexts. We’ve learned a lot over the years, and we apply that to specific cases to benefit your security company and your bottom line, fighting to retain law enforcement as first responders to alarms.
If individual companies had gone about trying to address the number of cases SIAC deals with across North America, they would struggle to identify where to best put their time and money. Their resources would quickly be depleted.
Our knowledge base gives us the expertise, experience and understanding of when to wade into a battle, what to say, who to meet with, what information to provide, and which parties need to be most involved. We cut to the chase. That saves you time and money.
If you don’t belong to any associations, we urge you to look at your local, state and national associations and contact them to see what the member benefits are. Being a member of each association is not costly, it’s an investment that will pay dividends year after year. If nothing else, you will develop stronger business contacts for the years ahead, and knowledge to help you run your business more effectively.
When it comes to your support of improving alarm management practices, SIAC is the go-to place. Feel free to reach us any time, directly through Stan Martin at stan@siacinc.org, or through our web site. We are a non-profit organization and relay on contributions to continue our service. If you find our services effective and valuable, we ask that you consider a donation by clicking here. We’re thankful for our contributors who consistently over the years have supported this industry-wide cause. We can’t provide our resources without you.