A Few Early Findings from Our 2020 AV Industry Survey

Respondents to the 2020 CI/NSCA State of the Industry survey still slow to adopt managed services, unsure how to find young talent to fill open positions.

Leave a Comment
A Few Early Findings from Our 2020 AV Industry Survey

There’s still more number-crunching and analysis to do, but the early returns on the 2020 CI/NSCA State of the Industry survey show that companies in the system integration space still haven’t fully embraced the idea of shifting to or adding a service-based component.

I also noticed an interesting paradox: despite an apparently overwhelming need to fill open positions and find new talent, most integration firms who have responded to the 2020 State of the Industry survey say they don’t have an internship program and have no plans to get involved with one.

I’ll be honest: I’m not sure which of these apparent trends is more troubling as head toward the dawn of a new year and into the Roaring ’20s—or whatever we’re going to call the decade ahead. It sort of means a lot of the work we’ve been doing at CI and the efforts of the NSCA staff has been for naught.

Or it could just mean we have to work harder to emphasize the importance of adding a recurring revenue component to your offerings and to better help you understand why you should be thinking now about the future of your company and the next generation of leadership when you’re gone.

What Can We Do About It?

I’m certainly not one to back down from a challenge so I’m fully prepared to write more about the importance of both managed services and talent recruitment and development. In all honesty, I wasn’t surprised when I saw how people were responding to those questions, but I was a little disappointed.

I know there are plenty of companies in this industry who have embraced and understand why they needed to shift to a service-based model. We’ve put them on panels at our Total Tech Summit and surely you’ve heard them talk if you’ve been to an industry event in the last five-plus years.

And part of the reason why we launched the 40 Influencers Under 40 list and why NSCA started Ignite was in response to the obvious need in the industry for a better way to find young talent. We like to think those efforts are working, but clearly there’s more work to be done.

Of course, we’ll be sharing a more in-depth look at the 2020 State of the Industry survey in the next few weeks but we hope this sneak preview has you thinking a little bit differently about your resolutions for 2020 and beyond if you’re not part of the group that’s already figured out why they’re important.

Click here to take the 2020 CI/NSCA State of the AV Industry survey.

If you enjoyed this article and want to receive more valuable industry content like this, click here to sign up for our digital newsletters!