The opportunity for integration firms to provide customers with valuable business data or system usage analytics is almost like a cliché. It’s written about constantly. It’s a regular topic at industry executive conferences. However, take it from a reporter who has asked around, it’s not done by many integration firms.
Malvern, Pa.-based Cenero does it. Presenting customers with a portal of valuable analytics is a prong in the three-pronged managed services approach that has helped it grow its revenue by an average of 30 percent year-over-year for 15 years. So it goes without saying that we asked a slew of questions to CEO Chris Henry and director of managed services Melissa Nick about their approach to presenting customers with business data. Here are some things we learned:
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Who wants system usage analytics?
It goes across all verticals – customers with multiple offices and/or multiple meeting spaces and large education candidates are prime candidates.
What do customers do with the information?
- If a video conferencing solution is only used in 5 percent of meetings but audio conferencing is used 60 percent of the time, that information can save customers a lot of money when it comes to planning future spaces.
- It helps them organize how they book rooms for meetings. Customers can educate employees that when they’re booking, for instance, a video conferencing or face-to-face meeting, “to use the appropriate room for what you want to make happen in the particular meeting,” Nick says.
- It helps them better understand what pieces of equipment and brands they prefer.
- It demonstrates ROI.
- It demonstrates whether the customers bought something that they really need.
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Why is an AV integrator fit to provide system usage analytics?
Integrators have access to the equipment and the endpoints. They’re “already pulling the information back and forth” Henry says. “It only makes sense to bring that together, aggregate it and present it in digestible bites.”
What’s the demand like?
It will increase. “As what I call the commodity curve continues to move up the ladder in our systems integration business and there’s no reason to expect that it won’t, if not accelerate, it becomes less and less about the equipment and more about the information you’re getting and what you’re doing with that equipment,” Henry says.
