It’s only been a few years now that integration partners find themselves deploying thousands of conferencing and collaboration spaces annually vs. only a few hundred per year in the pre-pandemic environment. Just a year ago, how many of us in the pro AV industry were thinking about artificial intelligence (AI)? While the industry has always evolved, the pace of change has dramatically accelerated. In fact, it’s fair to say that the field is going through a fundamental shift, driven by several trends like network convergence, AI, AVaaS and a desire for greater service offerings from customers.
These trends are creating exciting new opportunities for integrators, but also several challenges. In the midst of these challenges, how can integrators adapt and shift their businesses to not just survive the changing landscape, but thrive and position themselves for success for years to come? First, let’s explore the challenges that integrators are facing today.
Challenge 1: Increased Competition
Particularly within the corporate vertical, AV has made the shift from complex, bespoke and proprietary analog to low complexity, high volume digital solutions due to many factors, not the least of which has been network convergence. While not necessarily new, network convergence has accelerated and greatly streamlined the integration process – IP network expertise has lowered the AV integration entry barriers for all integration partners, regardless of legacy status. It’s opened the door to new competitors outside the traditional pro AV space from security integrators, IT/datacom integrators, master system integrators and others with IP network expertise who are now able to expand their business pie to profitably include pro AV.
Legacy pro AV integrators risk losing business to these new competitors unless they know how to adapt to the changing landscape and demonstrate value to their customers – offering enhanced services is one answer!
Challenge 2: Rapidly Changing Technology
Post-pandemic, the pace of technological change and advancement has been astounding. AI went from a science fiction concept to a regular part of our daily lives. Cloud adoption continues to accelerate dramatically – Gartner predicts that end-user cloud spend will grow more than 20% this year alone. These are fueling exciting advancements across the pro AV industry, both integrators and customers need help understanding these technologies and how they may – or may not – help solve business challenges.
Integrators need to have a functional understanding of these technologies and have the skillsets to implement them. If they don’t, they run the risk of becoming irrelevant and sidelined. Working with the right pro AV distribution partner that can provide training and education across all these areas can make all the difference.
Challenge 3: Changing Business Models
Prior to the Pandemic, pro A/V primarily revolved around hardware, whether that meant installing new equipment, or upgrading existing infrastructure. While that’s still a key part of the integrator’s business, the industry has started to shift to a more service-based model. We’re seeing pro A/V move from a tactical decision to a strategic one, driven largely by the C-suite, who are now looking at solution purchases as a way to achieve sought after strategic business outcomes.
And as budgets continue to tighten, AV projects are moving from a solely CapEx model to OpEx or hybrid approach. Not surprisingly, when it comes to pro AV, organizations are becoming increasingly interested in OpEx subscription-based services, rather than purchasing and maintaining the hardware or software on their own.
Integrators still need to be expert at providing the right hardware for the intended application, but, as always, they also need to be flexible in expanding their businesses to accommodate changing customer preference.
How to Thrive in Today’s Environment
In light of these challenges, how can integrators ensure that their businesses can not only survive, but thrive? The first step is to evaluate their current situation:
- Are they up to date on the latest industry trends?
- Regarding the challenges mentioned earlier, do they have the knowledge and skillsets to be effective?
- Do they know how to “sell” to the new decisionmakers – the C-suite – and do they understand their key pain points and motivators?
- Can their business model easily adapt to provide services to their customers, if needed?
The right distribution partner can be an invaluable ally in navigating the changing pro AV landscape and positioning integration partners for long-term success. The right partner can help integrators fill in any knowledge or skillset gaps through training or education.
And let’s face it, with existing skilled labor shortages, ongoing working capital concerns, and keeping up with accelerating technology changes, maintaining a profitable and growing integration business has never been more challenging. The right distribution partner can help integration partners understand and stay on top of the latest trends, enhance working capital, i.e., helping to profitably scale the business and more, allowing integrators to stay focused on maintaining and growing their businesses. Finally, the right distribution partner can and should provide the right products, solutions and services locally, regionally or globally – such as project staging, aforementioned working capital enhancement, pre-provisioning, kitting, packaging, labeling, DOA testing and more that can help drive profitability, both for the integrator and the end user.
Choosing The Right Distribution Partner
- True global reach: Distributors should have the size and scale to meet integration channel partner needs anywhere in the world, whether that’s down the street, across the globe, or anywhere in between. Having a partner that can help its integrators profitably scale their business is a clear competitive advantage.
- Local presence: Scale means nothing if a distributor doesn’t understand the unique needs and challenges of a local market or have the ability to deliver there. Having a local presence can help deliver efficiencies for both the integrator and end user.
- Supply chain and Logistics expertise: While supply chains have mostly normalized compared to the early post-pandemic days, it’s still vital to have a partner with deep supply chain and logistics flexibility and expertise. You need a partner that can deliver what you need, where you need it, when you need it and how you need it.
- Access to the right technology: End users might want cutting-edge products or they might have very specific needs that demand niche, bespoke solutions. Either way, you want a distribution partner that can provide the technology integrators and end users are looking for.
Despite or even because of these challenges resulting in a rapidly evolving landscape, it’s an exciting time to be in the pro AV industry. The changes we’re seeing, and continue to see, are creating unprecedented opportunities for integrators prepared to capitalize on them. Integrators who embrace these challenges and work with the right distribution partners will be able to provide enhanced value to their customers and profitably grow their businesses – both today and tomorrow.
Phil Langley is SVP Global Enterprise AV & UCC at Wesco.
