“Get lean again – nearly as lean as you were pre-pandemic…”

That’s always good advice. Most reading this are too young to remember Jack Welch, the legendary CEO whose mantra was “change – before you have to”, that succinctly said in five words more than most MBA seminars do with thousands and thousands. Thinking like Jack is why companies that did fine during the recession, well they “never let a crisis go to waste” (to borrow a phrase we’ve heard in the political realm). Those healthy, often larger companies took advantage of the recession/disruption to wring inefficiencies out of their own organizations. And they took a hard look at all their suppliers and asked, “how can we get a better deal from our suppliers?” Because their suppliers were all suddenly facing a buyer’s market not a seller’s market. That phenomenon is of course why it takes the smaller companies (including most suppliers) longer to come fully out of the recession – due to price stickiness, and other facets to the dynamic, that Peter alludes to here. Looking forward to the AVIXA report.

Good points, Sean. Excellent article.

Of course every marketing person at integration or live event companies, and at equipment manufacturers, is faced with this dilemma. Do you focus scarce resources on gaining market share in the known and more quantifiable markets right in front of you, or do you put more resources toward new and growing areas?

Probably not intentionally, but your first example – the installed AV control category – resonates with the evolution of “market research” in pro AV. Twenty+ years ago, when there was extremely scant data from which to calculate overall market size, most folks used this workaround: for installed AV, you looked at the sales of Extron (a couple of the very largest AV integration companies were good at this), and from that you could make a pretty good guess about the size of the installed AV market as a whole.

Twelve or fifteen years ago, a new dynamic emerged: the “echo chamber”. Take the display market for example: a few market research companies went to the big display manufacturers and asked them what their sales were. Most of the companies answered them not with their actual sales numbers but with numbers that were a combination of their target sales for that year mixed with some TAM magic dust. (I call it magic thinking because rigorous research from you/AVIXA did not exist then). Then add into the chamber: A new marketing exec parachuted into a display manufacturer, and to get a better, “objective” handle on the market, they went to ACME Market Research Inc and asked the ACME folks what the size of the display market was. Guess what they heard. Then they based their sales targets, and sales staff quotas, on what they learned. Such was the moonshine of market research in an industry that was both immature and still lacking in true market data due to the fact that most companies in the space were not publicly traded companies (in this country) and hence did not have to, by law, publicly divulge financial information to the SEC and other entities.

We’re (mostly) beyond that now, with many thanks to AVIXA, but I believe this legacy left – up to today – a flavor of skepticism about what real market research can contribute to decision making.

I’m intrigued by the fact that you, in your pivot to the live events market in your post, allude to the “control” category for live events. As you imply but don’t say, in that space there is not one or two or five dominant “control” or even media server ecosystems that might be analogous to the “trons” for the installed AV market. Indeed. Live event tech, arguably an older market than installed AV, is still the wild west when it comes to controllers and media servers. Well, that would be a great area for market research. Where are we headed there? And will market and control platform dynamics there cross over into installed AV? It’s already happening, I’ve been researching it in fact. But indeed you won’t see it if you’re only looking at the SAM in front of you, not at the TAM that’s not magic dust but based on real trends, real products, and pioneers that are building the market.

It’s good to hear Peter and Sean cutting to the chase on AI trends. And they honestly assess the possibility of AI-designed/managed collaboration systems for example being more plug and play going forward, so potentially taking some profit margin out of the pro AV side, as the ability of AV integrators to capture revenue by “fixing the imperfections” of those more routine AV systems diminishes some. But they really see AI as the X factor, on a variety of levels, for growth in the industry – so much so that they see an additional $100B being added to the industry through 2028. Good insights, AVIXA team.

Barcelona, great city that I love (my father grew up there and my grandparents had a long and amazing life there). There will plenty of tips from all corners on food, food+wine, and more food. Here's my tip: maybe not as extreme right near the convention center where they're used to many conventioneers and tourists, but in Spain generally, where the locals go: If you walk into a restaurant at 6-7pm, they'll probably ask you if you're coming in to recover something you accidentally left there at lunch (i.e. around 3-4pm). Dinner time generally in Spanish restaurants: starts getting semi-busy at 9pm, and peak time is closer to 11pm. Good news: at 7pm you can probably have your pick of tables. This is more so in summer. And again, places that cater to visitors' expense accounts will vary. I love the late night hours – midnight dinner in Barcelona and Madrid, I've been to a bunch of them...

My favorite Spanish dish: Black rice, in spanish: "arroz negro"... think a paella-like dish, but the "black" is: squid ink. The rice is prepared with squid ink. You can get it pretty simple, or in variations up to a full paella-like dinner. Arroz Negro with added squid and/or shrimp– will make your trip to ISE worth it before you even see a single dv LED wall.

Thanks for hosting SANJ. So many important issues and challenges. In no particular order:

• Not on the people side per se, but important: Margins/commoditization in AV. Many AV customers can just buy a simple collaboration stack on their own, so how to convince them that there is so much more to AV and experiential and production, and more.
• “Back to the Office” is only about half way there (for knowledge workers in the U.S.– I don’t have stats on other regions… does anyone here?). How do we support messaging that shows how the ideal office is not what many think, but empowers people to new levels wherever they are – but with an emphasis on new generation offices not WFH. Recent research says that people want to return to the office, but only to one that is not 2019-level but much more– and our industry has the tools to build those offices.
• Labor shortages (for lack of a better term) in AV: How do we better attract talent to our industry, and keep them here? Broaden the reach, to be more inclusive; Then broaden opportunity for advancement and mentoring and more, both at trade conferences and throughout the year– that last part is the huge challenge: we of course want people coming in person to the Trade events, but DEI is very much about reaching out to people, not just waiting for them to come to you… AVIXA is doing a great job but the challenge is still a big one and more hands are needed on deck.

Bien hecho, AVIXA!  Felicidades Martin Saul. Ya tengo ganas a ver – que tiene 2023 para todos...

Good, rigorous data, Joé and Peter. Here is where I see opportunity to move in the right direction: Today, women are outnumbering men in higher education. There are about 130 women for every 100 men at four-year colleges, and the gap is even wider at two-year institutions. How do we bridge that divide between the higher ed demographics and our own industry's? By setting up recruitment, intern, and mentoring programs that reach into higher ed to educate and recruit the future workforce, with a focus on DEI. I for one will be developing one such program in Austin. What resources can we bring to make that a nationwide program?

Good points Sean. Note, I do not work in Higher Ed per se, so I look forward to seeing the comments here of those who do. I’m a market analyst, researcher, journalist, and as such I’d predict that the answers to the questions posed here would be wrapped in some way around the following demographics and the changing nature of student bodies on today’s campuses. Consider:

• While the number of undergraduate students in the U.S. dropped by nearly 10% during the pandemic, formerly underrepresented minority applicants increased some 32%, and first-generation applications jumped 43% from 2019 to 2020.
• Hispanic enrollment at four-year institutions is up 287% between 2000 and 2020
• Women are now outnumbering men in higher education.

Will a changing body of students necessitate a reinvestment in technology tools, in individual campuses, and, more broadly, following the patterns of those demographic changes nationwide?