1. 8 avnetwork.com
scn®
scnS Y S T E M S C O N T R A C T O R N E W S
Y o u r i n s i d e r b u s i n e s s r e s o u r c e f o r m o r e t h a n 2 0 Y e a r s / / / / a p r i l 2 0 1 5
The
InTernaTIonal Issue
Reporting on the Trends, Innovations, and Practices Abroad from ISE
24 The Way They See It
Haivision’s Cody Kleven predicts reliance on
video communications to increase content in
all markets.
26 Inventor Profile
Dan Jackson, marketing and development
engineer with Crestron, helps shape the
future of AV control.
82 Viewpoint
Over the past 50 years, the office has
undergone a number of key evolutions, and
R. Randal Riebe argues that mobility is a
fundamental part of the modern office space.24 26 82
8 industry insiders
38Future trends
survey Where YOU think
the industry is headed.
44 Partnering with
it The ins and outs of pairing
with IT experts.
54 Plotting the oPen
Classroom Upgrading
technologies for education.

2. 44 s c n / / / / A p R I l 2 0 1 5 / / / / avnetwork.com
business trends
working with IT
W
hile the term “AV/IT convergence”
may be passé, the challenge
AV systems integrators face in
recruiting IT-focused talent remains current.
The question: for those AV integrators that
don’t have the resources to grow IT expertise
in-house, is establishing partnerships with IT
firms a viable solution?
Christopher maione, president of
Christopher maione Associates, a business
consultancy specializing in the AV industry
based in northport, nY, doesn’t believe so.
He argues that over the last few years, IT
companies—especially those deploying cabling
infrastructures—have expanded into areas
such as video systems installation, eliminating
the need for clients to source out AV systems
integrators. “It started with simple hang ‘n’
bangs—whether it be video projectors or flat-
panels—and one thing led to another,” he said.
“next, there’s a conference room down the
hall. next, there are five conference rooms.” In
expanding their reach this way, IT companies
don’t need to partner with AV integrators for
that matter, either.
But max Kopsho, director of training and
strategic business development at sVsi,
an AV distribution products manufacturer
headquartered in Huntsville, Al, believes
otherwise. Kopsho, who worked in IT before
building a career in AV, recounts that not
only do IT professionals not know enough
about audiovisual systems to integrate them
properly, they also have enough on their plate
already. “IT as a whole—even resellers—aren’t
looking for yet one more thing to do,” he said.
“They are not looking to learn about how to do
acoustic treatments, how to manage ambient
light, and all that stuff. They have way too
many responsibilities already.” Where AV
integrators lose business to IT companies is
when they don’t promote the value they bring
to the table; value, Kopsho emphasizes, that
is mission critical. “If I’m presenting to five or
10 people, I’m completely dependent on the
audiovisual systems to get my point across.
Then that should be considered a mission
critical element of the business, and it should
be assigned priority as such.”
Brian suerth, president of the san Diego,
CA-based Technology Assurance group
(TAg), an organization with members working
in IT, telecommunications, AV, surveillance,
video and telepresence, and managed print,
advocates AV/IT partnerships in the form of
third-party outsource contracts. “If you have
a strong senior technician that can almost be a
CIO or CTO in your organization, that person
can manage these third-party relationships,
and as you grow, you can start adding some
technicians internally, but the bulk of the
work can be outsourced to other entities,” he
explained. “That third-party outsource will
have the technology that proactively monitors
servers—whether they’re in the cloud or on
premise—and they will proactively monitor
pCs, laptops, tablets, all of those devices, to
ensure that everything is working properly.”
He noted that this approach enables AV
integrators to truly offer managed services
without having to do a lot of prospecting—at
least not at first. “They don’t need to go out
and prospect for new business; their business
is waiting for them within their own client
base. That’s where the opportunity lies,
because they have a captive audience that they
can now go and deliver managed services to.”
Kopsho urges AV integrators to seek out
likeminded IT integration firms that offer lAn
and WAn system design and support, as well
as on-site maintenance and troubleshooting,
as potential partners. He also encourages
AV integrators to align themselves with
companies that provide 24/7 monitoring and/
or service-level agreements. “[service-level
agreements] is a model that the AV industry
neglected and should have gone into early on
in the process, but now is our chance. We can
leverage a partner who knows how to do it
well, and we can seek out ways in which we
can work with them and increase the service-
level agreement to include the audiovisual side
of it as well.” All of this, of course, requires
a well-defined contract declaring who owns
what part of the system, and therefore, who is
compensated for what.
Pairing up
ShOuLD aV ParTNer WITh IT, Or DeVeLOP TaLeNT IN-hOuSe?
From left: Brian Suerth, president of the San Diego, CA-based Technology Assurance Group (TAG); Christopher Maione, president of AV consultancy Christopher Maione Associates; Max Kopsho,
director of training and strategic business development at SVSi.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////BYCAROlYnHeInZe////////////////////

3. avnetwork.com / / / / A p R I l 2 0 1 5 / / / / s c n 45
business trends
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
working with IT
While Kopsho is pro-partnerships, he
does warn against several pitfalls; namely
overestimating the competencies of each firm.
“They’ll both say: the synergy of what we’re
building together means that it’s greater than
the two, so let’s say that we can do this and let’s
say that we can do that [when we’re not really
set up to do it],” he illustrated. At the same
time, he warned, don’t play down your combined
competencies, either. “You can also go to the
other end of that spectrum and underestimate
your value in that partnership equation, and in
the way, you relay it to a customer.”
Kopsho also counsels partners to be
transparent with one another. “There can be a
level of paranoia, we’ll call it, which creates a
level of overprotectiveness of the information
that you have,” he said. For example, an AV
integrator may not want to share their sales
techniques with their IT partner, which could
result in losing potential business just because
the lines of communication are restricted. Once
again, a clearly defined contract should provide
the protection of ensuring that both companies
aren’t stealing each other’s business. This also
goes hand-in-hand with commitment: you only
get out of these partnerships what you put
into them. “[When I hear,] ‘It failed because
we didn’t make a lot of money at it,’ that’s
probably because you really didn’t commit and
assign resources to making it a success, and
therefore it’s not going to happen because you
originally started off thinking that it’s not going
to happen.”
What makes AV/IT partnerships so powerful,
Kopsho argues, is that they offer the potential
to expand the sales forces of both parties. “You
actually have an IT firm out there selling your AV
resources, and you’re making more money, and
then in the same turn, your AV staff becomes a
little bit more IT-centric, and they’re out there
selling somebody else’s services, which your
company gets a cut of,” he illustrated. And, if the
partnership is really successful, both companies
can work together to generate entirely new
business. “You get the results of them better
serving their customers because they’re going to
provide AV support, you’re better serving your
customers because you’re going to provide IT
support, and then you have the ability to seek
out a whole new customer base because of your
combined efforts, and that’s where the huge win
should be. It’s not just about keeping your head
above water, and keeping the IT guy from taking
over your business. It should be sought out as
a business opportunity that allows people to
grow both of the entities’ business and customer
bases.”
Carolyn Heinze (http://carolynsclips.wordpress.com) is a
freelance writer/editor.
AV,IT,Security:
TheNew
Convergence?
Christopher Maione, president of
Christopher Maione Associates, believes
that the AV/IT question now covers three
technology groups: audiovisual, informa-
tion technology, and security. He argues
that security technology––which not only
covers access control, but video systems
as well––offers AV integrators an edge in
projects. “It’s a little less of a commodity
than just pulling Cat-6 cable everywhere,
and it requires a certain level of systems
integration expertise,” he said. AV, IT,
and security, he said, offer the potential
to converge into one multidisciplinary
package. “We’re seeing large-scale proj-
ects being bid out to single integrators,
or they’re breaking the package up and
going to one, two, or three integrators.
But I think it’s the smart integrator that
can take that package from the construc-
tion manager and say, ‘I can give you a
price for all three.’”
––C.H.
THInKsTOCK