With the pace of change rapidly increasing in the AV industry, Biamp's Shell Haffner tells Anna Mitchell that integrators must have the skills and business models to cope.
Competition is intensifying, margins are squeezed and rapid technology developments regularly change the landscape. That’s the life that the average AV integrator needs to get used to according to Shell Haffner, director of product management at Biamp Systems.
Haffner, who has a background in IT and joined Biamp from Xerox, has noted changes in the AV industry and reports a feeling of déjà vu.
“Many of the changes that AV integrators are going through today have played out in the IT industry before,†he argues. “IT integrators are used to working in an environment where technology changes on a fairly rapid basis. There have been huge advances in personal computing in a short space of time and when you look at changing technologies - such as security protocols, networking protocols, databases, cloud computing – you realise the IT industry is used to handling rapid transformation.â€
Haffner believes the pace of change in AV is currently not as quick as IT but is moving in the same direction. And with AV/IT convergence, increasingly any changes in IT will affect AV. He believes that one of the crucial keys to managing these changes is training.
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