The AV markets in Asia have been booming in recent years. That robust growth is not only poised to continue, APAC will lead the world in AV market size by 2014. Is your AV integration company, or AV design firm, poised to take advantage of that growth, and turn growth into profitability? Best Practices have now emerged among the best AV integration companies that want to position themselves for improved profitability in a fast-changing AV and IT landscape.
Recent market research from AVIVA tells the story: while the historically larger market in the Americas for professional audiovisual solutions and services will grow to more than $112 billion in 2024, from $89 billion in 2019, AVIVA forecasters expect the Asia-Pacific (APAC) market to surpass the Americas, reaching $90.6 billion in 2019 and $127.6 billion in 2024.1
How do you position your company for success, and more profitability, in fast-growing markets where sheer growth and increased demand for services mean your competitors – strong and weak competitors alike – are confusing customers with many options? How do you stand out in a crowded field of providers? The most successful AV integration companies are discovering Best Practices around more IT-centric solutions, better AV/IP solutions, and better collaboration solutions that are now integrated with Cloud platforms to which many enterprises are migrating. And a key best practice – the “secret weapon” of the best AV companies in the region – is membership in AVIVA, the leading Association in the ASIA/APAC region and internationally – dedicated to advancing the AV integration business. These companies have found that leveraging AVIVA’s resources for training, certification, standards, and business intelligence allows their AV companies to succeed in a tough, competitive landscape with new pressures from the IT side and an influx of new technologies.
In the Midst of Growth – a more daunting, and more competitive AV and AV/IT landscape
APAC’s rise to the top spot as the largest region for pro-AV revenues is the culmination of several trends. APAC’s growth is driven in part by the region’s demand for security, surveillance, and life safety solutions, which in turn fuels growth in the streaming media, storage, and distribution (SMSD) product segment. SMSD is forecast to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.5 percent in the Asia-Pacific region from 2019 through 2024.
“The hike in the revised forecasts reflects strong economies and demand for new products and services,” said Sean Margo, senior director of market intelligence, AVIVA. “The growth in pro-AV revenue is actually outpacing expectations for global GDP growth.”
Adding to the boom: more AV/IP solutions, more soft-codec based collaboration and videoconferencing solutions that are easier for the end user customer to use, and more outdoor pixel mapping/projection and other experiential, live event-based AV.
Even as the demand for quality AV and AV/IT infrastructure increases, a new, tougher and more competitive landscape coupled with higher expectations for how AV integrates with IT systems now defines the markets in the APAC region. What’s driving the higher expectations, and the increased pressure?
We are now seeing larger project implementations. And new technologies – AV/IP, more OT-integrated Unified Communication, BYOD where corporate meeting attendees bring their own devices, AR/VR/MR (augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality) pixel mapping, and large palette LED, and more – are evolving quickly. How do you adapt to those trends and new technologies? One key is training and retraining, focused on AV industry certification – and keeping up with new product developments and trends by attending AV industry trade shows and conferences such as those produced by AVIVA.
How does training and certification, including AVIVA’s CTS, fit into the market? CTS stands for Certified Technology Specialist (CTS®) certifications from AVIVA – CTS General, CTS-D (Design) and/or CTS-I (Installation). Top AV Design Consultants – and other professional contractors who engage AV professionals – increasingly require that the systems integrators bidding on their jobs employ AV professionals who hold the CTS credential. Others give preference to AV companies that employ CTS-certified technicians.
Jeffrey LIM is managing director at PAVE System PTE Ltd. PAVE Systems is based in Singapore, and is also very active in the AV markets in Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia. PAVE Systems is an AVIVA Bronze member company. LIM sees “a more IT-centric world” today, and that drives a lot of what the company is focusing on.
“In the early stages of AV/IT convergence,” said LIM, “we were putting AV on the network, and the high bandwidth requirement often scared the IT people. And in the early days, compression was not that good, so quite a bit of our projects were still on separate networks, AV separate from IT. But I’d say that last year, and this year, 75% of the systems we’re doing are now AV/IP. That trend is strong, especially for 1Gb, that’s more readily deployable. For example, we recently did an upgrade of Singapore Pool's off-site betting center to A VoIP with Creation NVX.”
So it’s not surprising that at PAVE Systems, CTS credentials are important. PAVE’s Sales Director, Sales Manager, and System Manager have CTS certification from AVIVA.
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