Commercial Integrator March 2021 - 32

INTEGRATION Brand Development
HOW AVH TECHNOLOGY
PARTNERS USED THE
PANDEMIC TO EVOLVE
AVH Technology Partners,
formerly AV Helpdesk,
used the down time during
the pandemic to survey
customers, refine their
processes, and rebrand
their organization.
By Jonathan Blackwood
THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC has certainly
taken its toll on a number of integration firms
throughout the industry in the past year.
As entire industries were forced to shut
down, reduce capacity or send employees
to work from home, the well of available
capital to implement new technology
began to dry.
This sudden halt in technology projects
forced many organizations to take advantage
of new opportunities they might not
otherwise have thought of. The resimercial
trend of commercial integrators bidding
on residential projects saw an uptick in
popularity.
Communications and collaboration
technology vaulted to the forefront of many
portfolios.
For AVH Technology Partners (formerly AV
Helpdesk), the lack of business throughout
the pandemic served as an opportunity to
dig into their own processes, rebrand and
enter the new year more resolute in who
they were as an integration consultancy firm.
32
Commercial Integrator MARCH 2021
Facing a Pandemic
The firm, who graced the cover of Commercial
Integrator magazine in November
2012, suffered through much of the
same hardships many businesses did in
early 2020.
" The impact on us financially started right
when projects would go on hold, " says
Steve Grace, president and senior consultant,
as well as a founding partner of AVH.
" We saw expansion projects immediately
go on hold. We saw consolidation projects
go on temporary hold.
" As time went on, those expansion projects
got cancelled a lot of times, " he says.
" The problem was that the work dried
up almost completely. We had a ton of
time on our hands, " says Collin Hogan, VP
and senior consultant and also a founding
partner of AVH. " We feared that the
foundation of our business model was
threatened at its core.
" We feared that companies were going
to steer away from building conference
rooms in the future due to social distancing
standards. That was the initial thinking in
March, April, and June, " he says.
Considered large for an AV-specific
consulting firm, AVH Technology Partners
has seven employees across seven states.
The founders boast of an incredibly low
turnover rate. Keeping employees on board
and with the company is a personal point
of pride.
" We didn't want to lose anybody, " says
Grace. " That was the priority. That drove all
the decisions we made. "
The company took advantage of the
government-assistance PPP loans in order
to bridge the gap while projects dried up.
They made a strategic decision to furlough
five employees for five weeks in order to
make ends meet until further assistance
came in.
While navigating the process was
difficult, that down period allowed them
to consider new ways to spend their time if
projects were not going to be available.
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Commercial Integrator March 2021

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