Commercial Integrator January 2021 - 18

STATE OF THE INDUSTRY
exciting and rich time frame for people in
our industry.
" The experience will be so much more
richly valued at the next concert you can
attend or the next sports contest you can
be part of than any experience you've had
before. That will underscore what we do as
an industry, " says Labuskes.
That doesn't mean it will be easy to get
there, but AV can help to bridge the gap
for a lot of the problems we've run into
in terms of communication and staying
connected.
" All of us are going to be transacting
business in a face-to-face environment but
that environment will be extended to those
who aren't physically present, " says Labuskes.
" That means complete reconfi guration
of many diff erent building spaces and that
means work for the AV industry. "
AVIXA market intelligence predicts slow
growth in 2021 and return to higher numbers
than 2019 by 2022.
" In that environment, we're going to see
incoming capital that will drive innovation, "
says Labuskes. Enterprises will double down
on creating attractive places to work that
encourage people to come to the offi ce
because of access to technology and colleagues
that employees can't get from home.
" The next iteration of the workplace is
about having seamless interactions that are
impossible to have with one person sitting
at home, " he says.
In addition to the COVID-19 outbreak,
election results from November and continued
social upheaval will play roles into what
2021 brings for AV integrators, says Wilson.
" Those are all factors that tie into business
to get it back to whatever normal is going
to look like, " he says. " What's it going
to take to have businesses go from cash
preservation mode to putting money out
there to spend on an operating expense or
any kind of capital improvement?
" Thankfully our members sell a lot of the
technologies that are most in-demand, "
says Wilson, noting the money being put
into digital experiences exceeds physical
upgrades for the fi rst time.
" We've gotten a lot of good news, "
says Wilson. " The question is when it will
happen. It all seems to tie into the wide distribution
of the vaccine. " NSCA is advising
18
Company Profi les
How does your 2020 (projected)
pre-tax profi t compare to 2019?
How do you expect your
revenue to trend in 2021?
Down Less
Than 5%
Down More
Than 5%
32.2%
Down Less
Than 5%
16.9%
Up More
Than 5%
23.7%
Up Less
Than 5%
Same
16.9%
Up Less
Than 5%
Who is your typical client's most infl uential decision-maker?
IT Director
Consultant/Specifi er
Facilities Manager
Manager Specifi c to the Business
(offi ces, mall, school, church,
restaurant, gov't facility)
Other
members to extend the revenue models
they used for the second half of 2020 into
the fi rst half of 2021.
" We're trying to get people to not be
overly excited about when this thing is
going to rebuild, " says Wilson.
Bill Warnick, CEO of 2019 CI Integrator
of the Year Solutionz, Inc., says 2020 was
" a challenging year, " but his company's
ability to go in new directions as needed
helped them navigate the market well.
" Having backlog was crucial to us, but
so was being nimble in the way we managed
our business, " he says. " It's a little
like the stages of grief with our customers.
There's a big diff erence between trying
to book projects and trying to recognize
revenue. You have to fi nish projects to
recognize the revenue.
" Large-scale integration is still the
lifeblood of what we do, " says Warnick, but
Solutionz also added a cybersecurity offering
and increased its managed services
Commercial Integrator JANUARY 2021
capabilities in 2020.
" Being able to do things as a service
is important, so is being able to do a
subscription-based coverage of someone's
AV network, " he says. " That's going to be
a growing concern for our customers so it
needs to be of utmost concern for us.
" Any integrator will tell you they make
way more selling their own services than
they do selling boxes, " says Warnick.
Pivot, Pivot, Pivot
We highlighted the word " transition "
as the state of the industry for 2021 and
Wilson says that's a word AV integrators can
embrace.
" Technology is enabling a lot of this stuff
to happen, " he says. " Many of our members
have used this as an opportunity to
build foundational strength. They're taking
a step back and asking what the workforce
of the future looks like, what do we have today
and what do we need to train them on
commercialintegrator.com
44.1%
10.2%
10.2%
25 .4%
10.2%
10.2%
11.9%
18.6%
10.2%
Same
Down More
Than 5%
1.7%
57.6%
Up More
Than 5%
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Commercial Integrator January 2021

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