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Check out the video above for the full interview.
Below are highlights from an interview with Sandi Stambaugh, senior vice president of Vendor Management at TD SYNNEX by Systems Contractor News contributor Cindy Davis.
The current market environment is pretty interesting. For the AV industry specifically, we're having this amazing return to public space—live events are through the roof and venues are doing fantastic. But on the flip side, within the corporate space—the largest vertical within the AV industry—we're seeing this manic back and forth of returning and not quite returning to the office. And the topic of office occupancy rates is normal coffee talk, which is something that we never talked about before.
The primary focus for the past year and a half has been on personal productivity. The desktop monitor, the PC camera, the microphone—that personal workspace has been front and center. The office became just sort of “good enough,” because the global investment was going into this personal productivity side.
Now, with a return to the office, it's not as easy as just filling a bunch of conference rooms with technology and expecting employees to accept that. What we’ve seen is a switch in focus; it's more human-centric. We need to cater the technology to the people who are going to be populating these rooms and consider how they're going to be using those spaces.
Virtual production has been an exciting technological development in the office, specifically around the dvLED space and camera technology. There are lots of areas where folks can cut expenses and leverage technology in a way that is exciting for all of us. Video has become more important in almost every vertical market. That's one of those areas that has a lot of potential for our AV integrators.
And when it comes to AI, it really is more than a smart device. It's machine learning. It's expansion. It's adding support as we're going through our day-to-day practices, whether that’s a meeting or a manufacturing environment. At TD SYNNEX, we've got a dedicated team focused on advancements in AI and machine learning and all emerging technologies, and they work with us to support our partners within the space.
With regard to the space-specific services that TD SYNNEX fulfills, we're talking about two different worlds: There's the next-level technology within venues and live events spaces; and then there is the complexity of the corporate space. Both of those require services. That's where our integrators win—being able to complete that work assessment; deliver those proofs of concept; help with professional development, implementation, and monitoring use of the space; and assist their customers in expanding.
There's been a lot of innovation around the ability to provide that support to our partners, whether that's expansion in areas of technology that maybe they don't have expertise in today; helping identify funding streams to offset costs; or leveraging TD SYNNEX Capital to finance projects, where they get full upfront funding to help with the cash flow challenges, they're facing because of the complexity of the current environment.
