AV Everywhere

Now the integrators are being hit.

In March, I did a series of columns on the economy and its impact, up to that time, on the market. At that time, the companies that were feeling the economic downturn were the so-called box houses and the rental/staging firms.

Well, now the integrators are feeling it. Although business isn't down from last year for most of them, the growth is smaller than anyone would have imagined and now there are signs that corporate clients, who hadn't yet cancelled big projects - just put them on hold, are actually starting to cancel jobs.

But, not everywhere.

Churches are still booming. Home Theaters are still booming. And, universities are still buying at a huge rate. But, the so-called dot-com crisis seems to have sparked another round of ruin, this time among the ProAV market.

So, the economy has started to fall, sink or whatever you want to call it.

Now, it's common thought with many people that if someone like me writes such a piece as this that I will contribute to it happening. But, I have waited long enough to report the fact that since InfoComm in June, much of the ProAV market has hit the skids. In systems integration, everyone I asked at InfoComm said that things were fine and dandy, but it seems to have all of a sudden fallen almost overnight. In the past 60-days even ProAV dealers and manufacturers are starting to lay people off. Bummer.

But, don't despair. In preparing to do this column, I placed calls to some of the top integrators, top manufacturers and top rental firms in the business. Although they all universally agreed that the economy and their business is not recovering yet, they are hearing from clients that they will be buying again by Q2 of next year. Maybe Q1.

But, in the mean time, this market will have to enjoy growth rates of less than 10% for the first time in over six years.

But, look at the bright side. Up 10% is more than most companies in virtually every other segment of the high-tech market can say!

Gary Kayye is Chief Visionary of Kayye Consulting - a firm that specializes in providing marketing consulting and training development to the professional audiovisual industry. He spent 12 years at Extron and AMX as VP of Sales and Marketing before founding his own firm. He can be reached at www.kayye.com or via e-mail at gkayye@kayye.com.