Subcontracting AV labor isn’t new to the industry, but many questions persist regarding the decision to either hire another person, or subcontract. Herman Integration Services, the AV systems installation subcontractor company, sat down with us to answer a few of those questions.
“Since the late 2007/2008 period, many integrators had to scale back their business and the realization after scaling back centered around avoiding many people on their staff,” says Chris Bianchet, president, Herman Integration Services.
“Subcontracting really had a chance to take off.”
Geography is a key advantage
Bianchet says many companies are working locally or regionally, yet often have the opportunity to serve customers outside of that typical area. Taking care of a job post-installation can be the bane of regionally-expanding integrators; but having a local subcontractor solves that challenge.
“Besides the saved travel cost of having somebody there already, more importantly, you’ll have someone there for ‘Day 2’ support,” says Bianchet.
Assuring quality in AV labor subcontracting
“I would love to be able to say the industry has 100% adopted the same standards for employees across the board, but when you’re working with hundreds of different manufacturers who have products that work together in different ways, there are a lot of concerns about standards.”
One of the first things Bianchet says he asks his clients who come to him for AV services is: how many standards have you established?
Related: The Cost of Hiring Employees vs. Benefits of Contracting Good AV Labor
“Do you have a manual that shows us how you like your racks built, a way to set up audio systems, etc.”
Unfortunately for him, many of his clients haven’t worked up to the point where standardizing has happened. But when Herman contractors work alongside these integrators on the job, they tend to pick up on some of the inherent, not-necessarily-obvious standards and can match pace with them, he says.
“Once we work with them for one or two jobs, we try to bring our knowledge of standards to their team in the cleanest way.”
What Herman offers
- labor support
- basic installs
- field engineering
- lead technicians
- programming for control systems & DSP
- pre- and post-sales engineering
- CAD services
- Day 2 support service
Learn more in the video above.