Today’s technology has pushed the world into a place where the daily activities across geopolitical borders should not be restrictive to how people interact with their meeting systems. The issue facing the audiovisual industry, though, is how to create that unified user experience throughout any office location.
International AV systems integration firm, AVMI, believes that it has developed a solution to solving this problem.
Ed Cook, CEO of AVMI, sat down to talk about his company’s solutions and how they are looking to aid in the execution of corporate audiovisual solutions in a global atmosphere.
AVMI has spent the last two years developing software tools and processes that allow the client to determine its needs for meeting rooms based on products but not restricting them for the suppliers of the technology.
“We feel we’ve invented a service framework which actually allows companies to adopt standards in their meeting rooms on a global basis,” Cook says.
This framework was based on developing internal catalogs for the clients; a platform that, “gives the clients the flexibility they need,” to pick the technology that suits their meeting rooms and other deployments while still allowing for competition.
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The way that AVMI is supporting this is by offering their software solution as its own service contract. The client pays for the ability to use these tools and incorporate them into their system deployments but can then contract out to the systems integrator of their choice to provide the equipment and installation. AVMI can be one of those possible vendors, or they can just be the client advocate and manage the project, including developing the user experience of the systems.
Additionally, AVMI has incorporated the AV-as-a-Service model into their business by developing their own management platform based around Crestron’s Fusion product. This allows for remote management and improved client support as they can remotely diagnose and potentially fix any issues that their clients might have.
When someone on site is required they currently have 70 integrator partnerships around the world to support these systems in areas where AVMI does not have its own local field office.
AVMI has chosen to manage its clients’ system data itself. Cook states, “We have an international team in our London office who spend all day, every day on projects outside of the UK.” He continues, “The model we offer to our clients is that it’s all centrally controlled and the idea is that once our team is bigger here in the US and bigger in Asia it will be centrally controlled, but out of those geographies.”
When Cook was asked about how AV is going to be affected with more traditional IT companies making a bigger push into the AV space, he mentions that this is something that the audiovisual companies don’t necessarily have a lot of control over because it can be dictated by the clients and their comfort level with the equipment as it exists in their environment.
However, he was quick to point out that, “the profit is all in the service business.” Audiovisual companies need to be the “trusted advisors,” and “be there for when they [the clients] want the more complicated systems.”
The globalization that has come about due to technology is a prime example of how the audiovisual industry is well positioned to offer support and solutions because of the varied knowledge and experience that it possesses. AVMI is making itself a prime example of this as they develop tools to make the user experience from system development to completion and maintenance simpler for all their clients.
AVMI has recently expanded into the United States with an office in New York so it can begin to offer local support to their clients. Cook made sure to emphasize that AVMI’s expansion into the US market is still planned to be through its current integration partners.
To see how AVMI’s new service framework has been applied to Cisco’s Project Workplace, please visit www.avmi-cpw.com.
