CE Pro January/February 2024 - 4

From the Editor
by Arlen Schweiger
Industry Leaders Share
Their 'State' Status
" We got into
lighting to
help us get into
the [project]
process earlier,
and for the
first time, at
our spring
conference we
were hearing
members say
that we're being
called into the
process prior
to the hiring of
GCs - that's
humongous. "
-Jon Robbins,
HTSA
WHAT IS THE STATE of the custom integration
industry as we begin 2024? I had the
opportunity to address that moderating a
Smart Stage session panel at last fall's CEDIA
Expo in Denver. We gathered CEDIA's
Daryl Friedman along with Azione Unlimited's
Richard Glikes, Oasys Residential Technology
Group's Hank Alexander, HTSA's Jon
Robbins and ProSource's Jim Pearse. Here's
a glimpse of what they had to say about
members' successes and struggles:
DARYL FRIEDMAN: " The growth area is
lighting and shading. This is one of the key
areas where integrators are finding amazing
growth, amazing margins, so that's one of the
great positives. And they're starting to look
at some emerging categories like wellness,
sustainability, and power management. The
challenge today is the same challenge I heard
when we started [my tenure], which was
labor. In such an industry with this optimism
about growth, if you can't find the technicians
and the salespeople to work for you,
you can't capitalize on that growth. "
RICHARD GLIKES: " If you look at the
Arlen Schweiger is
Editor-in-Chief of
CE Pro. He can
be reached at
arlen.schweiger@
emeraldx.com and
@ArlenSchweiger
on LinkedIn.
market in three segments - the lower end,
the middle market and the high end of the
market - there is no low-end business right
now - the middle of the market is hit or
miss, and the high end of the market is flourishing;
if you're dealing with one-percenters
or one-half of one-percenters, you're having
a good run. The problem is that we need all
those to hit. I think we could all say the last
three months [of 2022] were pretty bad, and
the good news is now we're up against some
weaker numbers, so I think there's a light at
the end of the tunnel. "
HANK ALEXANDER: " We're seeing a lot
of help, a lot of success with process management,
education - we've partnered with
4 | CE Pro January/February 2024
Daryl and CEDIA for the CEDIA Education
Academy - so we've seen success with those
initiatives. Labor continues to be a problem.
We've got members who want to promote
somebody and they don't have somebody to
take that other person's position, so it's backfilling
positions, finding that next technician;
and we're partnering with a lot of people in
the industry to help that along. "
JON ROBBINS: " We got into lighting to
help us get into the [project] process earlier,
and for the first time, at our spring conference
in April, we were hearing members say
that we're being called into the process prior
to the hiring of GCs - that's humongous.
So despite the fact that we think it's going
to be a flat [2023], we're pretty bullish on
what's coming. [Regarding labor], we created
a video with One Firefly to help promote
what the industry looks like. They can show
people these videos, that this is a really cool
industry, it's fun - and our members are
using this to attract new talent. "
JIM PEARSE: " There's a couple of areas
that have been a struggle. One is just really
getting good at operations in the business,
and when we were discussing that with
[dealers], they pointed out the project
manager position is so important to profitability
because it drives labor efficiency, it
drives inventory, it drives purchasing. So we
stood up a hands-on training in Virginia to
do training for project managers for a week.
What we found is when you start to teach
project managers about leadership, about
the financial acumen required to really
drive a better outcome, it's been amazingly
successful and sold out for as long as the
calendar allows for these events. "
These are just snippets from one question;
check out the entire session at youtube.
com/watch?v=lurQADViF0w.
cepro.com
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CE Pro January/February 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of CE Pro January/February 2024
