5 Challenges Your Company Faces for Enterprise AV Deployment

You might say that AV technology deployment has always been a few steps behind IT deployment. The reasons for this are varied, but some of it stems from the technology itself. Information technology hardware and software shifted from purely proprietary technology islands to more standardized, interoperable platforms earlier than audio-visual technology. In that process, standards and management systems grew up around IT to help manage scaled, rapid deployment of these systems.

For better or (mostly) worse, AV technology did not benefit from the same technology standardization until much later. AV equipment and systems, for the most part, have not benefitted from management standards and technology like SNMP, which helps monitor and manage large numbers of connected devices. As a result, large-scale AV deployments have always been more difficult to manage and support. While that’s changing, many other challenges have contributed to the difficulties in AV deployment, whether it’s in a Phoenix corporate campus or around the world. Let’s examine these in more detail below and explore how managed deployment services can help.

SEE ALSO: Three Ways Your Company Can Benefit from Managed Services for AV Technology

Standardization

Organizations face IT issues with standardization, whether it's desktop platforms like macOS, Windows, or Linux or productivity platforms from Google or Microsoft. AV has the same issues, whether it's using Zoom, Microsoft Teams, WebEx, or other videoconference platforms. Not to mention all the hardware and other systems that support these end-user systems. It’s often difficult to standardize in one location, let alone multiple global operations.

User Experience

Ideally, workers should be able to walk into a meeting or conference room and start a meeting with little effort. Unfortunately, with different systems and equipment often acquired by different teams across multiple locations, this is typically the exception more than the rule. The user experience has also been part of the standardization challenge.

Monitoring and Diagnostics

While remote monitoring, updates, and diagnostics are mature technologies in IT, they are less so in AV systems. As a result, global deployments have always been challenged in monitoring device health, software and firmware updates, and fixing issues without sending a person physically to the problem location.

Quality Assurance

What else does a lack of standardization lead to? Performance and operation fluctuations. Does a video conference take one minute or five minutes to get started?  When solutions aren’t implemented in the same way, you’ll get different performance metrics. Achieving comparable performance and operation from AV systems has been a challenge in large and geographically dispersed deployments.

Metrics

Organizations have often struggled with understanding how AV resources are used. Are large conference rooms being used for small meetings most of the time? How much use do huddle rooms see versus larger meeting rooms? Are rooms continually scheduled but not used? All these metrics can help determine how to best deploy AV systems, but organizations have lacked the tools to obtain them.

Managed Deployment Services

AV systems are essential, but your organization may struggle with the challenges of properly staffing enterprise-wide deployment and support. An AV managed services company can help in several ways. Managed services providers like Level 3 Audiovisual utilize proven standards and processes to create repeatable solutions that can be deployed at scale anywhere and everywhere. A standards-based approach helps to minimize differences and achieve cost-effective deployment across locations and geographies. A dedication to detailed documentation, processes, and quality standards ensures consistent implementations of solutions that look and behave similarly from Phoenix to New York to London. A continuing investment in state-of-the-art tools for monitoring, diagnostics, and usage ensure more system uptime and better information for planning investments in AV resources.

Want to know more about how managed AV services can help your AV deployments? Learn about flexibly outsourcing your AV technology needs with Level 3 Audiovisual by reaching out to us here or clicking the chatbox below to connect instantly. We look forward to working with you.