Commercial Integrator February 2022 - 19

COVER STORY
nology) will suit their needs. Rouse shared
an anecdote about a company whose
lease recently expired and that, for now,
has shifted its 40-something-person workforce
to a coworking space as a temporary
waystation. When the future becomes
clearer, that company will decide what
kind of square footage to lease and what
technology to utilize.
There's an analogy here for savvy AV
integrators. Ours is an industry in which
technology becomes obsolete remarkably
quickly. As a result, many organizations are
reluctant to make a large capital expenditure
on integrated AV because they fear
that, in 18 months, they'll incur another
large capital expenditure when they need
to procure new equipment. " There's a fear
of, 'I'm going to spend all this money, and
you're just going to come out with something
[new] next year,' " Sargent elaborates.
It's an argument for integrators to embrace
what Sargent calls a membership model,
or a leasing-based approach.
For a monthly, quarterly or annual fee,
the integrator partner leases the technology
to the client, and the integrator
regularly comes in to manage, update and
refresh the systems to ensure they're up
to date. It's a wait-and-see approach not
entirely dissimilar to the company whose
team is parked at a coworking space.
But, importantly, it doesn't require the
client ever to go without. " If I can lease a
new printer and have that replaced every
couple of years, " Rouse reasons, " then it
would be lovely if I could do that with my
other information technology equipment
[and] with the AV system. "
Sargent takes it a step further and asks
whether individual companies necessarily
need their own Cadillac-class integrated
systems. " We're moving into the sharing
economy, where access is the new ownership, "
she opines. " Not every company
needs a fully tricked-out conference room
that gets used once a month, once a week
or even once a day. What's important is
having access to it. " Sargent floats the idea
of shared spaces in commercial environments,
where multiple tenants have access
to a collaboration space rich with integrated
communication systems. " I just use it
when I need it, " she says, putting herself in
the client's shoes, " It's an amazing experience,
and I just have to show up. "
Brave New World
We find ourselves looking ahead to an
uncertain but exciting future. Integrators
should consider the viability of shifting
at least some clients to a membership or
'We're moving into
the sharing economy,
where access is the
new ownership.'
- Kay Sargent, director
of workplace and senior
principal, HOK
leasing-based model to give them peace
of mind that they'll never make a huge
capital expenditure only for the system to
be obsolete a year later.
Building owners and end users should
ponder the wisdom of shared technology
spaces to reflect the fact that partially
depopulated offices - not to mention the
ubiquity of collaboration platforms like
Microsoft Teams - might mean that not
every company needs its own million-dollar
systems. And even if a client does need its
own integrated AV - and even if leasing
isn't the right model for that particular customer
- integrators must nevertheless not
only make the technology user-friendly, but
also speak in a language that's comprehensible
to the decision-maker. " Think about
how you speak to the CEO, not how you
speak to information technology, " Rouse
summarizes.
Lamenting the inaction currently prevailWith
an activity-based working approach, employees have access to a range of technologyenabled
work environments to suit the activities in which they happen to be engaging.
commercialintegrator.com
ing, Sargent issues a call to arms for leaders
to show the way forward and break the
indecision paralyzing some organizations.
" What we need right now are courage and
leadership, " she declares. In the meantime,
as an appreciable number of remote employees
struggle with loneliness, isolation
and burnout, they remain stuck in neutral,
waiting for a better option to arrive. CI
FEBRUARY 2022 Commercial Integrator
19
COURTESY ERIC LAIGNEL.
http://www.commercialintegrator.com
Commercial Integrator February 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Commercial Integrator February 2022
