The PSNI Global Alliance is preparing for its largest Supersummit to date this week—with over 175 members and partners in attendance. The 12th annual Supersummit, held Feb. 20-21 in Atlanta, GA, will feature motivational speakers, educational panels, and a plethora of networking opportunities.
PSNI's preferred vendor partners (PVPs) will take the stage at various points during the two-day event to discuss their latest initiatives and the state of the industry.
“PSNI is very fortunate to have stakeholder partners who help support our network and make Supersummit possible," said Chris Miller, executive director, PSNI. "More than just financial partners, our PVPs are vested in our members success—bringing their time, talents, and business insight to the network to advance our collective agenda to be world-class product and service providers."
[PSNI Opens Supersummit to the Public]
Ahead of their panels, we asked these manufacturers their thoughts on where the pro AV market is heading and how their respective companies are preparing for market changes.
Nathan Bohl, Sr. Director Product and Brand, Chief, Legrand AV
We see the AV market heading toward globalization and standardization. There is an increased expectation of consistent product and customer experience throughout the world. On the local level, expect to see standardization of end user experiences throughout a building, campus, company, etc. We’ll continue to see IoT solutions that help to measure, monitor, support, and enhance end-user experience with AV.
On that note, we see much more focus on solutions that enhance customer experience. Look for more focus on solving customer problems with solutions versus a product-based focus. Our new go-to-market strategy helps Legrand AV support our customers in a way where they can successfully create solutions and enhanced customer experiences for their customers regionally and globally. Many of our newest and future product launches have a solution focus rather than simply solving specific problems by individual products.
Elizabeth Stephan, Director, Strategic Accounts, Belden
We see the pro AV market continuing its shift to a network/IP topology. The AV technology decision making will reside more frequently in the IT directors' responsibilities. Thinking about AV as an additional application on the network leads to the expectation of a single warranty for the cabling infrastructure necessary for system support. The Belden Smart Building Warranty was designed to support the needs and expectations the end user has for their cabling infrastructure.
Joe Andrulis, Executive Vice President of Corporate Development, Biamp
Across all applications, we foresee a continued and growing interest by pro AV buyers for systems that don’t just perform well, but that are easy to integrate, commission, and manage. Biamp designs all its products with these priorities in mind, and is working to assemble complete solutions for popular use-cases that ensure flawless integration and operation. Features like single cable, termination-free wiring, auto-setup and configuration, and remote monitoring and management are just a few examples of ways in which Biamp makes designing, installing, operating, and managing its systems fast, easy, and reliable.
Clint Hoffman, CEO, Kramer U.S., Kramer Electronics
The pro AV market is going to accelerate even faster towards AV-over-IP, and away from traditional pro AV signal routing and distribution. As for Kramer, we’re going to continue to expand our line of AVoIP encoders and decoders in order to have a complete offering for this changing market. Also, we’re going to continue to work on integrating our cloud-based control solution Kramer Control, our network capable wireless presentation and collaboration solutions Kramer VIA, and our enterprise management software Kramer Network, together in a manner in which we can meet the changing market requirements and deliver as-a-service offerings for manage services sales.
Sandi Stambaugh, Vice President, Product Management, Synnex Corporation
Within the professional AV market, we’re seeing an increased number of global deployments among enterprise customers. Our Westcon-Comstor Americas acquisition and increased focus on global distribution is helping us streamline those purchases and deployments. With the expansion of IoT and fully integrated technology solutions such as smart buildings, end users are demanding more of a connected experience and are looking to their integrators for thought leadership and direction on how to deploy. Synnex’s expansive IT background and manufacturer relationships with companies like Google and Microsoft make us well-positioned to support and train our customers on responding to these needs.
Rob Smith, Senior Director, Integrated Systems Sales for Western Europe, Shure
Over the last few years we’ve seen a convergence of hardware and software. Companies are looking to create simple, transparent all-in-one solutions that serve a multitude of use cases while providing seamless control and flexibility from beginning to end. With the release of software products like Designer 3.1 and SystemOn Audio Asset Management, Shure has already begun to prepare for that convergence by broadening our feature-set to enable monitoring, control, and metrics so customers can manage needs easily across their entire audio ecosystem.
Jeff Hastings, CEO, BrightSign
A trend we expect to continue is the move toward massive, geographically disparate signage networks with thousands or even tens-of-thousands of endpoints. In most cases, these devices are connected to the internet, which presents an inherent security vulnerability. To help customers combat this threat, BrightSign offers a commercial-grade, purpose-built operating system that keeps players locked down—this is a huge security advantage compared to other signage platforms built on consumer-grade operating systems.
Randy Reece, Western Region Manager, Draper
Because of the growth in digital signage, we are seeing a lot more opportunities for mounting solutions. And while there are a lot of attempts at “universal” display mounts, we’re finding that more display manufacturers are seeking custom mounting solutions because they actually make installation much simpler and less expensive. Even with the growth in flat panels, we’re finding that projection screens continue to be very relevant in today’s AV world. The opportunity is that most dealers and engineers are not educated about new screen technologies available to deal with challenges like ambient light and accurate color reproduction.
Brian Cuppett, Senior Vice President, Sales, ScanSource
Partners within the AV market are starting to expand their businesses into new technologies and routes to market. Networking, security, cloud, and monthly recurring revenue are all becoming an integral part of the AV solution, and ScanSource is at the center of that solution delivery channel. We can provide all components of the total solution to our partners, in addition to the tools, resources, and support they need to help their end customers achieve their business outcomes.
