Last month I attended Enterprise Connect in Orlando, Florida. This annual conference focuses on enterprise communications & collaboration, attracting thousands of industry experts and decision-makers who want to engage with vendors, consultants and analysts to understand the latest enterprise network and communications trends. Relevant themes for virtually every organization, and of course highly relevant for our team at Kinly. More than enough justification for me to attend this event, especially since I was given the opportunity to participate in a panel discussion on the topic of ‘Video Conferencing & AV Managed Services’.
Our panel discussion, led by the inspirational Ira Weinstein, senior analyst & partner at Wainhouse Research, explored questions such as ‘which problems can be solved by managed services?’ and ‘what impact do managed services have on an AV/video environment?’. Other panel members included representatives from other leading industry players.
Connected to the success of our customers
Kinly’s vision for the AV market distinguished itself clearly from the other parties that participated in the discussion. What strikes me is that so many organisations in the market have adopted such terribly complex approaches. In many cases, that is not only frustrating for the companies themselves, but also for customers. In the end, they do not receive the user experience or total cost of ownership they had expected. The method they use is what we call 'system integration' - integrating technologies that crash all too often or fail to deliver optimal performance, for instance when updates have not been tested properly. So far, this approach is simply not good enough; as far as we are concerned, there is no viable future in that. Customers demand proven solutions, supported by technology that they can rely on. Trusted advisors such as ourselves should therefore implement radical standardisation, unburden customers completely, and provide warranties and guarantees for the products and services offered. When you take this approach, your solutions become intrinsically interwoven with your customers’ success, as they become part of that important foundation for a modern, competitive enterprise.
One of my key takeaways from Enterprise Connect was that we are at the forefront with our business outcome model, supported by our managed services philosophy. In the end, it is all about the contribution we make to the business of our customers (regardless of the technology and/or service models we use). The responses from the audience underlined that point as well. What I also noticed was the current relative lack of innovation in the AV industry. For instance, it has been some time since companies like Pexip and Acano (now Cisco) really shook the market. Google and Amazon are currently who people are looking up to for solutions such as Alexa, Hangouts and Jamboard. Nice technology that offers a solution for a variety of demands. However, they are proprietary systems that lack the ability to ‘talk’ to each other. It is merely a matter of time until new tech companies or service providers will emerge that try to connect these islands to each other. That is exactly where Kinly has always played an active role, that’s where all the players in our market will need to focus more of their attention.
Working together. Everywhere.
There are exciting times on our horizon, that much is clear and an event such as Enterprise Connect highlights how evident that is. It is an interesting place to discover where the market is currently at and where it is heading. It also offers us the opportunity to benchmark how we – our models and solutions – are doing in relation to these trends. For that reason, I am already looking forward to Enterprise Connect 2019. Until that time, we will keep on working and helping our customers address their business challenges. Working together. Everywhere.
