Global AV Partnership Targets New Members

ISE 2017 serves as unofficial introduction to new worldwide consortium focused on consistent standards and worldwide AV rollouts for large corporate customers.

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Global AV Partnership Targets New Members

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The founding members of the Global AV Partnership have taken the first major steps toward adding new members to the four-month-old consortium aimed at creating standards of excellence for worldwide corporate customers in need of AV upgrades.

CompView CEO Scott Birdsall, Unified AV president Barry Goldin and Digitavia sales and marketing director Darren Pitt canvassed the record-setting crowd at Integrated Systems Europe last month, talking to major manufacturers and potential future partners about the partnership.

The trio also talked to possible clients about their goals and plans for the future, introducing many of them to what GAVP has been doing since its launch in October.

“We see the market changing,” says Birdsall. “When it comes to the types of solutions we’re providing, we’re looking at room standards and global rollouts. It’s something that’s challenging our industry overall, but we know these companies want a consistent feel around the world for their AV.

“Our clients are trying to figure out a way to have a fast rollout of technology around the world. These companies are adopting an IT mentality,” he says.

Goldin sees the potential for the partnership to add three or four new members in the next six months, but there is nothing imminent on that front right now. Founding members agree they’re not going to try to add too many members either.

“We want the Global AV Partnership to be a small number of very dedicated members,” says Birdsall.

Goldin doesn’t expect the partnership to target the largest integrators in the industry if they don’t fit what other members want.

“It’s easy to find the biggest integrator and seek them out to help us with this, but it’s more about having the same mental approach as what we do,” he says.

Pitt, whose company is based in the U.K., served as host for Birdsall and Goldin during ISE. He called the introductions and meetings with manufacturers, integrators, partners and clients “an opportunity for the people we talked to escalate this idea up their organizations.”

“The enterprise market is looking for volumized solutions,” says Pitt. “Every single room needs to have AV today. That’s what’s driving this change.”

The partnership launched this fall after clients from the three companies started asking for help with their worldwide rollouts.

“We really envision this as being about like-mindedness more than anything else,” says Goldin. “It’s more about finding the right partner than about meeting a particular metric in terms of adding a certain number of members by a certain date.” 

To be considered for GAVP membership, companies must:

  • support ongoing staff development and industry certification
  • operate within a sustainable business model
  • have a defined project management and installation process
  • demonstrate a proven track record of successful large-scale project delivery with exceptional customer satisfaction

GAVP members will use InfoComm International’s APEx standards for its projects and partnerships and will rely on what Birdsall calls “in-country expertise” to address clients’ questions while supporting clients in 30 countries across five continents with its combined workforce of more than 500.

“We want to have a model and a standard that’s easy to replicate,” he says. “If you can build a model around the most challenging clients, others will follow.”

So far, the Global AV Partnership has done projects in New Zealand, China, Singapore, Europe and more. When it comes to which member company takes the lead on the project, “it’s a matter of program management versus project management,” says Goldin.

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