If your presentation system stops working four days before an in-house conference, you likely have better ways to spend your time than digging up warranty information and troubleshooting the source of the problem. Researching technology investments can be a hassle, but managing and maintaining them for years can be a big commitment. How do you ensure that your audiovisual (AV) equipment, in particular, runs smoothly for years to come? You don’t have a crystal ball to tell you what’s going to go wrong, but the next best thing is to partner with a service provider that will make sure you have the right plans and agreements in place. When a customer purchases and installs new technologies, they will receive warranty information and offers to maintain their new system. The customer, the manufacturer, and the service provider are three sides of the triangle that will keep your equipment running optimally. However, “that triangle is sometimes difficult to understand,” says Mark Teifert, Director of Service and Support at Level 3 Audiovisual. Buyers may not know what’s included in warranties or who will be responsible for what. Here is a simple breakdown of terms to make sense of it all and feel confident about the long-term care of your audiovisual investments.

Have you ever purchased a new piece of personal technology—a smartphone or a laptop, for example—only to find out a few days or weeks later that a new and improved version is about to drop? In the fast-paced world of personal devices, buying the latest and greatest doesn’t mean that your investment will stay that way for long. It can be frustrating to learn you spent top dollar for something that will be obsolete in a year or two. In the world of enterprise solutions, technology upgrades require huge investments and technology buyers are responsible for protecting a company’s bottom line by spending money responsibly—not to mention being accountable to a whole lot of users. The last thing you want to do is fall into the trap of spending a lot of money on a system or technology that won’t meet the organization’s needs in the long-term. You can “future-proof” your investments—and avoid unforeseen and unnecessary upgrade costs down the road—by assessing legacy systems and existing solutions, outlining strategic goals and objectives, and researching technology solutions that can meet your current and future needs.