Year after year, integration firms across the globe are challenged with adapting to the continual advancement of technology and ever-changing systems integration market.
Traditional AV integration customers now have plenty of options for less-custom, easier-to-install and extremely well-marketed alternatives to the solutions integrators would typically provide. However, integrations firms such as AVI-SPL argue that customers can still find extreme value in custom integration.
AVI-SPL hosted its annual Sales Acceleration Summit (SAS) in Tampa, Fla., where the largest AV integration firm shared its plans for future success in AV systems integration. The focus for the future ranged from extending its global reach to maintaining its success as a collaboration solutions provider.
“We’re at an inflection point in the industry. I think in the next two to five years or even beyond, we’re at a point to jump on a rocket ship in terms of the opportunity,” says Dale Bottcher, SVP sales, AVI-SPL.
“We’re at an inflection point in the industry. I think in the next two to five years or even beyond, we’re at a point to jump on a rocket ship in terms of the opportunity.” —Dale Bottcher, SVP sales, AVI-SPL.
Coming off of a successful 2015, where AVI-SPL saw a 20 percent bookings growth, which is almost double that of the average growth of the industry, the company is looking to continue the momentum into 2016 with a heavy focus on providing reliable service, developing and acquiring talent, and evolving into the collaboration provider space.
“A significant amount of our success last year was driven by focus on the enterprise space and focus on large projects that were available to us,” says John Zettel, CEO of AVI-SPL. “We’re seeing where enterprises are connected; they’re generally coming out with RFPs that include the entire environment or campus, not just a segment of a meeting room. They’re expanding the scope of that.”
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AVI-SPL had great success in services last year, which saw double digit growth. Zettel predicts managed services is going to have triple digit growth in 2016.
“It’s important to go beyond the wall—establish trust with the customer, to be on their network, establish credibility, the certifications. That’s what we’ve embarked on, really becoming proficient in much more than just hanging an end point,” says Zettel.
Over the past few years, AVI-SPL has made significant investments in its service, implementing a 24/7 help desk that provides customers with immediate responses.
“It’s true support, loaded schematics, serial numbers. It’s not an outsourced call center. These are people who have intimate access to the information and to the installations to be able to provide support,” says Zettel.
AVI-SPL is also focused on continuing to provide customers with consistent experiences, especially when delivering on large projects.
“We are handling [enterprise accounts] with more of that dedicated, program management type of overlay to be able to deliver a consistent experience,” says Zettel.
“So from a services perspective, there is someone that is exclusively dedicated to their account and familiar with it. That cohesiveness of the entire account across all of the offerings that we have with those clients is very important.”
