Commercial Integrator May 2023 - 3
EDITOR'S NOTE
Emerald X, LLC.
100 Broadway, 14th
Floor
New York, New York 10005
800-440-2139
commercialintegrator.com | @commintegrator
Preserving
Project Profi ts
DURING NSCA's Business & Leadership
Conference (BLC) 2023, attendees got a dose
of tough love regarding integrator profi tability.
In a session entitled " Don't Sell Yourself Short, "
NSCA CEO Chuck Wilson, Ford Audio Video
president Jim Ford, and ECD Systems president
and CEO Mike Bradley warned integrators
against " losing by winning. " They sounded
the alarm about integrators continuing to
chase low-margin projects. This trend, they
cautioned, is causing net profi ts
to slip, which, in aggregate, puts
integration companies at risk.
Without " naming names, " the
speakers pointed to the recent
spate of integrator acquisitions.
Some just-acquired integrators,
they said, had run out of money,
tapped out their lines of credit
and needed a bailout. In some
sense, then, this BLC 2023 session
was an intervention meant to
shake up the status quo.
Bradley pointed out that AV integrators
absolutely love what they do - but that can be
a double-edged sword: A culture of boundless
enthusiasm isn't necessarily a profi t-focused
culture. Working on a large-scale stadium, arena
or other prestige project might look great on an
integrator's résumé or as a website case study.
However, those benefi ts are meretricious if they
consume lots of time, energy and person-hours
that integrators could spend more profi tably
outfi tting boardrooms, classrooms and other,
more prosaic spaces.
Many white-whale projects also involve the
A provider of
mission-critical
products and
services does
not race to the
bottom; it carries
itself as the
indispensable
partner it is.
ask themselves before taking on a project: Do
we trust this customer? Is this something we're
good at? Is this something we want to do? A
negative answer to any of those questions
means saying " no " to the project, period.
Key to the calculation is integrators empowering
their fi nancial leaders to interrogate a
project's profi tability potential. Marketing might
desperately want a dazzling case study, but
fi nancial leadership's profi tability analysis must
prevail. That is especially true
as contract language becomes
more onerous for integration
businesses. Indeed, the speakers
highlighted the commonness of
the ominous phrase " The integrator
shall be responsible.... "
Although Wilson, Ford and
Bradley spoke plain truths, they
acknowledged integrator attendees
can't reorient their business
practices overnight. As they put
it, it's hard to get integrators to
RFP process. Unfortunately, the bid market
rarely results in integrators realizing large profi ts.
Indeed, Ford said his fi rm usually has to make 10
bids in order to win just one job - and winning
can set off a round of internal second-guessing
about whether the team overlooked anything in
pricing out the bid.
Wilson, Ford and Bradley concurred that
integrators must become more comfortable
saying " no " - and saying " no " faster. Ford
off ered a few questions that his team members
commercialintegrator.com
" change their stripes " or " rewrite their DNA. "
But there are immediate steps that integration
businesses can take to shore up their profi tability.
For example, integrators can devote their attention
to the negotiated side, working directly with
end users, as opposed to chasing aſt er RFP work.
In addition, integrators can work diligently to
avoid underestimating labor, which Ford identifi
ed as a systemic problem. Third, integrators can
lean into AV integration's status as mission critical
and feel confi dent charging accordingly. A
provider of mission-critical products and services
does not race to the bottom; instead, it carries
itself as the indispensable partner it is. And for
clients that don't see AV integration's value, the
one-word response is simple: " No. "
This kind of thought leadership empowers
integrators to run their businesses better. I hope
many in our audience take to heart the exhortation
that the hundreds in attendance heard.
Dan Ferrisi, Editor-in-Chief
dan.ferrisi@emeraldx.com
@danferrisiedit
MAY 2023 Commercial Integrator
3
EDITORIAL
Editor-in-Chief Dan Ferrisi,
914-383-9030, dan.ferrisi@emeraldx.com
Chief Content Offi cer Jason Knott,
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Commercial Integrator May 2023
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Commercial Integrator May 2023
Commercial Integrator May 2023 - Cover1
Commercial Integrator May 2023 - Cover2
Commercial Integrator May 2023 - 1
Commercial Integrator May 2023 - 2
Commercial Integrator May 2023 - 3
Commercial Integrator May 2023 - 4
Commercial Integrator May 2023 - 5
Commercial Integrator May 2023 - 6
Commercial Integrator May 2023 - 7
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Commercial Integrator May 2023 - Cover3
Commercial Integrator May 2023 - Cover4
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