Why outsourced AVaaS (AV as a Service) may not be the right choice for Higher Education

[Matthew Fearnle]

With several macroeconomic factors converging, the topic of AVaaS (Audio Visual as A Service has been permeating the AV echo chamber for about a year or two. As a Higher Ed technical manager what is AVaaS and what does it mean to you.

What is AVaaS?

AVaaS is an offering from AV integration providers that supports the functionality, stability and usage of AV systems. This can exist as an onsite position, remote monitoring or a combination of the two.

What is the advantage of AVaaS?

Having onsite technical support from an integrator can go a long way in assuring system stability due to the chain of custody and design support from the original integrator

What are the the potential drawbacks of AVaaS?

One of the main drawbacks is culture, one can hand off a highly personal enterprise function to an outside contractor that may not understand the cultural nuances of your enterprise. Is the contract one of "service" of is it based on an integrator covering their turf? IS the support focused on the end user? or the hardware? And in the end these positions tend to have high turnover rates because once you set a tech on a client property he/she becomes an annuity adding to your company's bottom line, while after 6-8 months these techs start to realize that they aren't learning anything. Being natural curious creatures AV techs crave challenges, these "concierge" positions play away from those challenges and have an end goal of making everything go smoothly.

Where does AVaaS provide value?

For corporations with a large integrated footprint, AVaaS makes perfect sense for a company where AV Support is not a core function. Finance, law, medicine, and biotech are all industries that have found that outsourced on site support is cost effective for the type of organization that they run.

So why not AVaaS for Higher Education?

Many if not most Higher Education entities have an internal design team, so who knows the road map better than your internal designers?  Internal teams are also more attuned to what vendor excels at what specialty. Many Higher Ed clients will use one vendor for auditoriums, another for classrooms and yet another for digital signage. Since everyone (schools and corporate) want the work done in summer there is a requirement to do some resource planning to get the right vendor in the right space. As one client told me, " I don't want to have to choose between the "C Team" from the "A Vendor" or the "A Team from the C Vendor". 

The two things that make Higher Education stand apart from AVaaS:

1. The material, all that is being shared in classrooms is content that is also "product" hence your asset is the ability to leverage the classroom experience.

2. As a colleague defined: " It is the triangle between the technology, the instructor and the student, a vendor will take care of the technology...but will he/she take care of the relationship between the three entities?

The one big difference between corporate AV and Higher ED AV?

In the corporate world those gathering around the technology are being paid by the entity, In Higher Ed they are paying for the opportunity to gather around the technology.

I can't speak for you but I want my clients (students) to be supported by my people.

Thoughts?

MF