In this past week’s Impact Survey from AVIXA, the organization shares the degree to which industry pros are experiencing reductions in revenue—and reveals when they think things will turn around.
[Tackling the Uncertainty: The AV Industry Faces COVID-19]
To their credit, AV professionals, overall, are not usually pessimists. AVIXA has been surveying the industry for various research initiatives over decades, and if there’s one word to describe general market sentiment—through economic expansion, recession, and unforeseen hardship—it’s been “optimistic.” Optimistic about their business prospects; optimistic that next month (quarter, year) will be stronger, regardless of the challenges faced currently. The novel coronavirus pandemic and its effect on societies around the world may be challenging that tendency to look on the bright side, though many currently see a glimmer of hope.
In this third weekly survey of AVIXA AV Intelligence Panel members, fielded March 30-31, there are more signs that business is slowing across the board—not just in live events, where a limited survey sample has said near-unanimously that cancelled projects/events and revenue declines have negatively impacted their companies. Now, a greater share of all AV providers (integrators, designers, manufacturers, distributors, service providers) has reported declining sales and revenues than in previous surveys.
Asked to cite the negative impacts on business over the last seven days, 67 percent of AV providers now point to revenue declines and 71 percent say slowing sales. Both these figures have been climbing week-to-week since AVIXA first fielded the Impact Survey on March 17. In addition, 42 percent of AV providers say they’ve been affected by supply chain disruptions, the first time that number has exceeded 40 percent.
According to one AV provider, “We are not conducting site visits, which means we will have a reduction in new work in about two or three months.”
Among other negative impacts cited by AV providers that have gradually ticked up over the weeks: cancelled projects (now cited by 57 percent of respondents) and delayed orders (now at 55 percent). About 30 percent of AV providers said they’ve reduced staff over the past week—about the same share citing layoffs as in the previous Impact Survey.
“We provide service to a small community, which is a population that is at risk for the virus,” said another AV provider. “Our work has disappeared, so we are utilizing the time to finish, as best we can, projects that were in production.”
Read the full report here.
