Standing Out from The Crowd in These Challenging Times in the ProAV Market

Part 1

Since the Coronavirus pandemic came crashing into our lives earlier this year,  it has hugely impacted companies of all shapes and sizes across all industry sectors, presenting ever changeable challenges in how they need to adapt to fit in with this current landscape we find ourselves in.

Employers and employees across all sectors, are trying to navigate ever changing policy directives, and new ways of managing their staff.

I think we can all agree that remote working will increase substantially from pre-Covid levels and offices will start to morph into something resembling a hybrid of remote and permanent staff, with the focus on socially distanced hot desks and meeting rooms.

Office kitchens will disappear, being replaced by vending machines, as less staff will be working full time out the office, whilst meeting rooms will be fitted out with the kit to enable fully interactive online meetings, hence reducing the need to travel, both helping keep travel costs down and reduce the risk of contraction of the virus in higher risk countries.

In terms of the UK AV market we have seen the enormous impact on the outdoor entertainment sector, trade shows, conferences, in fact any venue where mass crowds would be expected.

However, it is not just this sector that has been affected. AVIXA reports cancelled projects, in-person meetings and training events through to a slowdown in sales globally since the Pandemic.

Most companies are still surviving, but sadly its likely we are going to see some firms go out of business and others partner-up to benefit from scale and joint resources.

So, how can you help yourself to survive this storm?

As companies start to invest and move forward with AV installations, they will be looking for installers who are not just efficient in their work and work to a budget, but more importantly, who can assure the client of not just a cost effective solution but a stable one that won’t fall over in time which can so often mean costly and inconvenient call backs to the client.

Whilst much of the current infrastructure in place is only 1080p, as we see new investment and upgrades on current infrastructure the move to 4K will mean that installers will no longer be able to simply rely on vendor specs or the ‘Does it have an image on the screen Dave?’ to test the integrity of the installation.

I believe the winners will be the companies that recognise the benefit of testing and certifying their cable installations, enabling them to perform faultless first-time installations resulting, in both high customer satisfaction and greatly reducing potential call backs.

In a follow-up post tomorrow, I will go into specifics on exactly what AV installers should be testing and why?!