Commercial Integrator November 2021 - 34

INDUSTRY Pivot to Profit
WHAT WE
LEARNED AT
PIVOT TO
PROFIT
AV-as-a-Service, adopting IT principles, cybersecurity
and other business challenges dominated NSCA's first
in-person post-COVID Event.
By Zachary Comeau
IN-PERSON EVENTS ARE BACK, including
NSCA's Pivot to Profit, which was held in
Atlanta in September. One of the first pro
AV industry events since the COVID-19
pandemic began dove into a variety of
topics, including emerging technologies,
AV-as-a-Service and business concerns
brought on by the pandemic.
Here's a look at what we learned from
one of the first in-person pro AV events in
two years.
New Technologies You Need
to Look Out For
As we all should know, the pandemic has
accelerated many trends in technologies
since organizations around the world looked
to software and hardware to help them
maintain business continuity and connect
with employees and customers in new ways.
The Pivot to Profit session, " New Opportunities
with Today's Technologies: Growth
Strategies for Integrators, " gave the
integration community a glimpse into the
not-so-distant future of AV technology and
trends that integrators need to look out for.
Maureen Pajerski, chief operating officer
of AI computer vision company Intellisee,
said integrators " can no longer think in
terms of buildings. " In short, the workplace
experience should be very similar to the
technology experience at home.
34
One-touch conference room solutions
will replace systems that require using a
touch panel or hooking up other devices. "
According to Pajerski, deploying
intelligent AV systems - especially those
equipped with machine learning technologies
that help improve the intelligent capabilities
over time - can help integrators
maximize their recurring revenue.
Getting customers to continue paying
for systems requires there to be a value add
to systems you install, and AI that continues
to learn does just that, Pajerski says.
" With artificial intelligence, the value
added is built into the product, " she says.
" It automatically gets better. "
The idea of mixing home and work lives
has been a constant theme throughout the
pandemic, with children, pets and objects
in the background of a Zoom call offering a
glimpse into our personal lives.
However, working from home is giving
your customers a new way of looking at
the technology they use to do their jobs,
according to Harry Aller, CTO at Innovative
Lighting, who says those remote workers
are becoming tech experts.
" They're competing with you, " Aller
says. " They have family members at home
that worked in their school auditoriums
that are now handling their personal tech
and solving their problems. "
When offices fully reopen, many of those
remote workers will demand that technology
resemble what they used at home.
" We used to be the experts, we created
the instructions, we pasted them on the
wall, we develop the user interface, and
they had to abide by those rules, " Aller says.
" They just got a glimpse at what it means to
not abide by those rules, so they're going to
come back to the office and they're gonna
try to tell us how to do our job. "
If your customers aren't already asking
Attendees of P2P were happy to once
again join together in person and discuss
integration business.
Commercial Integrator NOVEMBER 2021
about your security posture and the
security of the AV systems you're installing
for them, get ready, says J.B. Fowler, chief
product officer at Domotz, a network monitoring
company.
Fowler cites the increasingly strict
cybersecurity regulations coming down
from the U.S. and state governments which
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Commercial Integrator November 2021

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