2020: a new year, a new decade, and opportunity for a new start. With that in mind, we asked AV professionals to share their business resolutions for the new year. Here's what they had to say:
Alexis La Broi, CTS, Director of Sales, Mid- Atlantic and New England, VER
I’ll be focusing on my customers. There is not one obvious answer to the question, “Who is your customer?” External customers who buy from your company are very important and are the obvious answer, but internal customers need support so that they can, in turn, provide excellent customer service for those external customers.
I’ll provide extra support for my primary internal customers: my team. I’ll provide resources to them to help make their jobs easier, back them up when they need me, and connect them with training so that they’ll become their external customer’s SMEs for AV equipment sub-rentals.
Scott Walker, CTS-D, President, Waveguide
So many resolutions, so few words. However, in the spirit of conciseness, I’d say I/we/Waveguide resolve to lead our clients through workplace-technology standardization processes that lead to efficient, enterprise-wide rollouts of reliable, repeatable workplace-tech solutions. In doing so, we will establish standards programs that embrace new, streamlined models for project deployments regardless of where on planet earth those projects exist. We also resolve to create rich data analytics for our clients on their people, places, technology and processes so they can make informed business decisions that improve their bottom line.
Christine Schyvinck, President and CEO, Shure
We will continue to be a company that welcomes—and even leads—change. Shure will become even more of an industry pacesetter, risk-taker, and innovator in 2020. To maintain our competitive edge, we will keep looking to the future and the changes, challenges, and opportunities it will bring. As Shure technologies continue to advance, we will take vigorous steps to ensure that our organizational structure, internal capabilities, and business model evolve as well in 2020.
Sammy Ponzar, CTS, Audio Visual Production Manager, American Enterprise Institute
In 2020, I hope to continue my professional education and obtain my CTS-D certification. At our facilities, I am working toward streamlining our aesthetics by contacting vendors to help design a confidence monitor stand, a stage bridge, and an ADA ramp. I would like to continue taking our end product and figuring out more efficient ways to reach our end result, while maintaining the Institute’s sleek aesthetic. In addition, I plan to put more time and effort into networking. Getting too comfortable is a career killer, which is why I would like to continue to challenge myself with new and exciting projects at AEI.
Jeremy Caldera, CTS-D, CTS-I, CEO, IAS Technology
My 2020 resolution for IAS Technology is to continue with further reinvestment in our employees. Our goal is to create a professional work environment that fosters growth both professionally and personally. The continued success of the company is not possible without each individual that shares our core values. IAS Technology believes in certification and continuing education for all employees and we plan to support this even more in 2020.
We embrace creative and innovative thinking, which allows us to be on the cutting edge. To foster that way of thinking, our desire at IAS is to provide a friendly, fair, creative, rewarding, and profitable work environment for our team. This includes not only an excellent quality of life and benefits, but a continued investment in the education and training. Our belief is that our team of skilled professionals are our most important asset and what makes IAS successful.
Mark Bonifacio, Head of Corporate and Education Segment, Sony Electronics
My business resolution for 2020 is to further expose our customers to the full scope and breadth of Sony’s versatile AV ecosystem, which can deliver an end-to-end option that promises quality and reliability.
As our business transitions, I’d like to emphasize that Sony offers not only powerful products, but scalable solutions that work alongside and enhance our product portfolio. Additionally, my goal is to connect with corporate end users who would similarly benefit from Sony’s latest collaborative tools, which have already gained wider acceptance in the education space.
Jonathan Brawn, Principal, Brawn Consulting
In 2020, we want to focus first on improving our efficiency, and optimizing our offerings for our existing customers. I want to prioritize growing those relationships before I go looking for new ones. In doing so, I will look into better automating our processes so we can achieve our goals.
We also want to look more at device independence and cloud-based services for our own consumption, allowing us to better collaborate and operate as a team.
John Godbout, Founder and CEO, CCS Presentation Systems
The audio-visual integration industry has changed enormously over the years. As CCS closes in on 30 years in business, I feel we need to continue to innovate, instead of just repeating past successes. We're asking "What will be the next big thing? What skills will tomorrow’s AV technicians need?"
For 2020, I have challenged my team to find new areas to expand into, searching beyond our core business and outside the traditional AV box. I’ve put no limits on their idea—the more forward-thinking, the better. It should prove to be an exciting new year.
Mark Winner, Managing Partner, TierPM AV/IT Workforce Solutions
At TierPM, we see that pro AV companies are identifying a growing need to analyze and visualize their core data in one comprehensive spot. By helping the audio visual industry create innovative data visualization dashboards, this allows companies to make real time business decisions that could impact everything from managed services to cost savings to inventory control, not to mention the discovery of emerging AV markets.
TierPM’s 2020 New Year’s resolution is to be the AV industry provider of market and business specific data visualization dash boards so AV businesses as well as the industry have the tools necessary to continue strong technical and economic growth
Paul Harris, CEO/CTO, Aurora Multimedia Corp.
Our 2020 resolution at Aurora Multimedia is to launch the ReAX organization as the first-ever open architecture control system. It will finally standardize and unify commercial and residential control system standards of not just protocols, but source code, macros, and IR libraries. It will allow manufacturers products to work together utilizing JavaScript and HTML running Android, Windows, or Linux.
Languages learned in school and nonproprietary languages will free integrators and end clients from being locked into a specific manufacturer due to the commitment of the proprietary resource required. Choice is Aurora’s business resolution for all in 2020.
Mike Harmon, Vice President Sales – US, New Era Technology
What is our business resolution for 2020? Two keywords: growth and opportunity. At New Era, we are steadily expanding. We now have more than 28 offices globally with over 1,100 employees, supporting 7,000+ customers, with plans to develop and strengthen our presence in new markets.
With growth comes new opportunities. We have a positive outlook for the new year, and the New Era team sees a bright future for the organization and the industry. Cheers to a successful 2020! Happy New Year!
