Matt Scott and Kramer’s David Margolin chat from the balcony of Kramer’s ISE 2020 booth about what the company is doing to bring AV and IT departments into even closer alignment.
For Kramer and its IT clients, it is no longer about AV/IT convergency, which is already a reality. According to Margolin, Kramer needs to look at their motivations and what makes them feel comfortable when they shop for AV solutions.
“For us this [means] three things: easy of use for their users, easy of use for their teams when they want to support those solutions. And from the integrator side, obviously, it should be easy to install and fix whatever is broken there,” Margolin explains. “Then of course, there is the security side. And, 95 percent of IT professionals, according to latest statistics, will tell you when shopping for technology [it is about] security. That for us is a major issue. We actually talk about this at the front of the booth, but it transcends through all of our product lines.
“And of course the management side. AV needs to be managed the same way IT is being managed — remotely, from any device, and given the option for IT departments to better understand what is happening in their installations.”
Margolin, acknowledging that AV integrators often understand and know what an IT department wants and needs from them, notes that Kramer needs to adjust itself to that new reality and then take a good position when speaking with IT departments directly and not through the AV professional.
“[IT Depts] want to have technology that is easy, which does not break,” Margolin says. “Meeting culture has changed. You see less large boradrooms. You see a huge increase in smaller meeting spaces, ad hoc meeting spaces. Exponentially, this is a huge headache for IT departments and this is something that we need to take into consideration when we approach an IT team.”
Kramer helps its dealer base to better communicate with IT departments about AV integration and security with its AV over IT program, which launched two years ago and aims to bring a methodology to AV/IT projects. It is in line with Kramer Academy, which launched a year ago, and aims to bring AV and IT together from a personnel perspective.
Kramer is at ISE 2020 in Hall 1 F20.