by Denise
Harrison
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Title: Company: Company description: Location: |
Q: What do you believe were the biggest changes in the industry in the last five years? How did they change things and what impact did those changes have?
A:
While
there have been many technological advances, the biggest change over
the past five years was the overall explosive growth of the A/V industry.
Multi-million dollar A/V jobs were, on average, fairly rare five years
ago. Today, they are commonplace. This geometric growth has taxed the
resources of most firms in this tight labor market. In addition, the
world now lives on "internet time" so projects that used to take 3 or
4 years from start to finish are being planned and built in 12 to 18
months. When you combine huge projects, fast-track "get it done yesterday"
design, and too few experienced people to do the work, the challenges
are immense. Carabiner and Intellisys were some of the casualties of
war. On the positive, this intense growth provided the opportunity many
newer, smaller firms to rise up and prosper.
Q: What is the state of the market now? What are the propelling forces and what are the barriers to growth?
A:
Despite the recent
plunge of technology stocks and talk of a possible recession, the A/V
markets appears to be extremely healthy right now. Most of the people
that I talk to in the industry are very busy and still looking for more
qualified people. Certain market segments, like the education market
and church market show no signs of slowing down.
I believe, that there are two main propelling forces driving the current
A/V market: First, one cannot be in the information-providing business
without having having high-quality presentation technology systems.
Corporations, institutions of higher learning, and government facilties
simply MUST invest in presentation technologies and videoconferencing
systems to conduct their business.
The second propelling force, I believe, is the keeping-up-with-the-Jones'
factor. There is an implicit (or many times explicit) need for each
new facility to be more state-of-the-art than the last.
The biggest barrier to growth is not technology, nor the cost of technology,
but the number of human beings on planet Earth who can properly design,
install and maintain high-quality ProAV systems. To quote another principal
at Waveguide, Phil Cartier, "A/V isn't rocket science, but it is science."
There just aren't enough "scientists" to keep pace with the demand for
growth.
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