There are challenges these days in the guarding business. Mergers and acquisitions continue a move to consolidation, especially at the top. There is pressure on pricing and training. There are liability headaches.
While the U.S. Department of Commerce estimates more than 12,000 separate firms offering officers, the top firms surveyed by Security magazine employ about one fifth of the total full-time security officers in the United States while bringing in about $8 billion in revenue. For the Security magazine guard firm ranking project, Security magazine surveyed North American guarding companies in late 2004, asking top executives to describe their companies, the number of officers they employ and their revenue. This time around, the Security research was augmented by ranking information from the Security Letter of New York, edited by Dr. Robert McCrie of John Jay College; and data through Jeffrey Kessler of Lehman Brothers, in his Security Industry Annual Report 2004.