Strategy in TECH...
Savant Systems LLC held their 2020 Integrator Summit this year in conjunction with the International Builder Show in Las Vegas, NV on January 20-23. At that event, the company unveiled a large array of new products and new strategic partnerships, showing they intend to retain their innovative edge that has attracted so many integrator fans.
By now, most integrators have heard the siren call that they should launch a recurring monthly revenue program (RMR) to add profits and deepen their relationships with their clients. But to many of them, this is an idea that is easy to say…but hard to do. Quite literally, it can be hard to figure out just where to begin.
There are resources within the industry that can step up and help your integration company offer an RMR or service contract program to your clients. Some of them can even offer to take and handle your service calls on a 24×7 basis. However, those services can be fairly expensive. But one service I’ve learned about, MC Group, tells me that they have assisted hundreds of integrators with an affordable program they call “Turnkey RMR.”
Control4 announced today the launch of the Neeo Remote for Control4, the first product from their acquisition of the Swiss company Neeo back in February 2019. This new Neeo remote control is optimized to work seamlessly with Control4’s OS 3 operating system, offering another elegant system control interface.
SnapAV announced today that it will begin distributing Sonos wireless music systems beginning next month in October. The company says it will offer the entire line – including the Sonos Port, Sonos Move, and Sonos One SL – as part of its extensive assortment of gear targeted to the professional custom integrator.
The assimilation of the custom integration industry by the once-reviled, now embraced soundbar is almost complete. And on the advent of another CEDIA Expo, yet another round of announcements of new soundbar products came rolling out. While this fact is now an accepted reality, what is remarkable is that some of these new soundbars are from companies that no reasonable person would have predicted would enter the category just a few short years ago.
Bravas Group, a cooperative of integrators aggregated by Paul Starkey and Steve Firszt of VITAL MGMT, was first put together as part of VITAL MGMT’s consulting practice helping member companies better organize their operations, improve their financial performance, and drive greater profitability. Ultimately, the group’s fifteen members coalesced into one widely-spread unified organization, with over-arching centralized management and plans for the group to be packaged and sold.
Now, in a deal said to be valued at $75 million, Bravas Group has been sold to Presidio Investors, a private equity investment company with offices in San Francisco, CA and Austin, TX.
SnapAV announced this afternoon that they have acquired Custom Plus Distributing, a regional distributor that started in the Pacific Northwest and expanded into California. This is the fourth acquisition by the company who seeks to grow their physical distribution footprint to better serve their customers in local markets.
Credit rating agency Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded the credit rating of Wirepath LLC (corporate name of SnapAV) from B2 to B3 in the wake of their announced acquisition of Control4. The primary reason for the downgrade is due to the fact that SnapAV will be forced to increase their debt by an additional $390 million to a new high of $683 million in order to close on this acquisition.
On March 28th CEDIA held a grand opening gala to celebrate their brand new $14 million glass and stone castle in Fishers, IN with about 250 of their closest friends. Depending on your viewpoint, this new facility is either a shining shrine to the strength of the custom integration tech association – or it is a monument to the monumental arrogance and ego of an association that is drifting further away from the very community it purports to serve.
But what many of these guests to the opening celebrations didn’t know was that, as they sipped champagne and oohed an ahhhd over the new gorgeous digs, there was yet another small member flare-up taking place in the background…with significant members expressing strong dissent on yet another Association initiative.
Control4 has recognized a new class of 67 dealers whose level of business with the brand has earned them the designation as a Pinnacle status partner. Pinnacle status, Control4 says, is a lifetime achievement that indicates their importance as a highly supportive partner.
