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September
5 , 2001
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The AV/IT Craze
By Gary Kayye, CTS
Where AV meets IT.
That was the theme shouted all over the show floor at the annual InfoComm Show held in June (in Las Vegas).
In fact, there was even a seminar with the same name.
But, what's the low down on this entire IT buzz and where's the money?
What is it, exactly, that dealers can do to take advantage of this emerging market and actually make some real cash?
I'm going to show you the money…
The day before the opening of InfoComm, I delivered a seminar that had been in development for months. The topic? Well, of course, IT/AV. Actually, the full name was: The Impact of the Network on Projection. When developing the seminar, I knew the topic was timely and thought it might be well received, but I had no idea it would be a sell-out and be attended by over 175 people.
So, for the benefit
of those of you who didn't get a chance to attend it, below is a short
synopsis of the facts delivered in the session and where, specifically,
a ProAV dealer can benefit from this convergence of IT and AV.
So, as this all happens, where's the opportunity for growth?
Hopefully this has
become more obvious through the four points I made above, but in case
it hasn't yet clicked,
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· Integrating of IT gear is profitable. Sure, there's not much profit in selling computers, routers or access points, but there's a lot of money to be made in the Intellectual Property of putting it all together. In much the same way that integrating projectors, switchers, DVD players and screens has remained the profit center for most AV integrators, this, too, is an opportunity un-tapped by AV houses. There's a world of opportunity to integrate data connectivity, communications and bandwidth into the AV system and into virtually every application that AV serves like boardrooms, conference rooms, training rooms and network operations centers (NOC). Who do you think makes more money in a NOC? The AV integrator of the IT integrator? Who's there, on the job, longer?
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· 24/7 Proactive monitoring. Here's the fifth profit center for the AV integration firm. The four profit centers that most good integrators are enjoying now are design, sales, installation and service. All, if set up and operated properly, should be stand-alone, profitable centers of revenue for the ProAV integrator. But, the fifth is here. Proactive 24/7 monitoring allows you to set-up a network operations center of your own to monitor critical client installations and communicate with virtually all the AV gear in a system and have it tell you before there's a problem. Like the security market has done for decades, the AV market can now do. IT communications and integration on AV gear will allow you to monitor everything from lamp life on a projector, to potential theft of a projector being taken out of the ceiling and all of this can be on a hourly, daily or monthly proactive monitoring contract - separate from the standard service contract. And, it's all billable.
- A new set of potential customers. Up until recently, most buyers of AV gear were not IT departments. Even though the IT department in most organizations is the gatekeeper to technology, the truth is that the AV department has only recently begun to report to the IT department or the CTO (chief technology officer). Well, that's changing. And, that's a good thing as IT managers actually embrace technological change much faster than the average AV manager does. That means that the technological life cycle will accelerate in acceptance, potentially, and we may actually sell lots more gear to the same company. This has already been proven to case in the university community where the AV department is part of the IT department. In virtually all cases, the university is buying 25-35% more equipment due to two factors: 1- the IT department budget is larger than it was when AV was a stand-alone entity and, 2-the IT department understands the need to have a natural upgrade path for all technology gear - even AV gear.
Finally, there's one more thing that you should be aware of. Although it might seem like I am advocating that the average ProAV dealer become an IT dealer, that's not the case. I do believe that adding an IT team may be something you want to consider. And, unlike the AV world, there are a plethora of IT certification programs that afford you the ability to find IT talent reasonably fast and without the need for much training in the way of AV. But, at the very least, consider a partnership with an IT integration firm, as the referrals for work for both of you will be a win-win on both sides.
Gary Kayye is Chief Visionary of Kayye Consulting a firm that specializes in providing marketing consulting, training development and project management services 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.
(Reprinted from Sound & Communications Magazine: http://soundandcommunications.com)
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