Avanta is a UK serviced office company, which manages over 670,000 sq ft of office space in prime locations in London, the Thames Valley, Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh.
The company opened eight new business centres in London and across the UK last year, and is continuing to expand its portfolio and diversify its network of locations. London is a key market for Avanta and its business presence in the capital includes office suites in the West End, Midtown, City and Hammersmith.
Val Pearson is the UK operations manager at Avanta, and is responsible for running Avanta’s 16 UK business centres. "We rent out meeting rooms to internal and external clients who need access to all the latest technology. Some of our clients might use our rooms regularly but many of them will only hire a room once," Val explained. "We needed a system for controlling the technology in our meeting rooms and it had to be self-explanatory and straightforward to operate. Also, it was crucial that it did not involve our staff constantly having to show people how to use it."
Avanta consulted specialist installer Martin Cowling at AV Communications for the solution, "I recommended an AMX system using AMX Novar ControlPads because it’s ideal for simple, flexible, cost-effective room control", said Cowling. "Also, in a corporate environment you need a control pad that’s fairly rugged and capable of withstanding heavy use," he explained.
The Novara ControlPads give presenters control of the audiovisual equipment, including LCD projectors, TV/VCR, audio, video conferencing, plasmas screens, and laptops.
Cowling adds: "To control the PC, video, and audio switching I used the AMX Solecis Integration Switcher. Some of Avanta’s meeting rooms are combination rooms with removable partitions so they can be separated to create double or triple meeting spaces. This requires a flexible solution and Novara and Solecis are versatile and adaptable enough to work with these demands".
Pearson concludes: "The control pads have proved to be extremely reliable. Novara is the ideal solution for us because the panels are logical and self-explanatory. When you press a button it does exactly what it says it will do. We simply show our customers where the panel is then they take it from there and can operate the room technology with confidence."