Breaking Down the Impact of Consumer Preferences on B2B Technology

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Pro A V today. This is another episode of our series focused on the impact of the consumer world into b to b technology. We wanna talk a little bit more today about the channel side. So the impact of things like e commerce as a service models, but also the impact of the commercial side of the world on the consumer side and see how maybe some of the inverse opportunities are happening from the commercial side back over to the consumer side, especially from things like product development, user preferences, things like that. And to talk about that today, I've got my next guest, Mark Peterson, from from Shen, Milissom, and Wilke. Mark, thanks so much for coming on today. Thank you very much, Ben. Pleasure to be here. Well, Mark, for our viewers who've been following along in this series, just to recap quickly, we've talked a lot about, you know, consumer technologies, maybe it's at home speakers, maybe it's and technology and things like that. Really wanted to focus a little bit more today as somebody who, like yourself, is is an expert in the AV kind of commercial installation world, but also the the consultancy world where you're able to grab a lot of those preferences and and understand user demands on how they drive our installations. So at a high level, Can you give us just a quick overview of of maybe some of the the high level technologies and ways that you've seen that commercial preference drive that b to b side of the AV Yeah. Well, I mean, I think one of the things we we start with is that concept of the shift in the buyer behavior, and the same thing we're seeing with the with the consumers happening in in the commercial market with the buyers of the products. You know, they they are expecting to be able to have much more of a online, a purchasing, opportunities. And the portals, and we're just gonna be seeing a lot more of these b to b online marketplaces and customer portals become the way in which clients can buy and select products But the same time that's happening, a lot of the products that are going into these commercial spaces are really getting quite mature. And the differentiation that's happening is less on the technology of the product, but the bolt on value added services, and that's we're really seeing the shift where when you would think about previously, like, some say, well, why did I go to Best Buy and buy a display? Right? And it's shifting because there other values that are associated with that display. And most of that is multiple displays, managing a lot of products knowing what's being, shown on those displays, knowing when they're working and not working, and also the those value services and and day to support. So those those bolt ons or added services are really quite effective in that online marketplace because I think previously you had just been sort of like fluff on the, you know, left on a on a contract. And now they can menuize the items that they actually want to select what services, and and, response times that they wanna have, from manufacturers, you know, right down to specific rooms and specific, SLAs. I think the other thing we wanna look at is the concepts of, consumer choice, right, which typically, it's this rational thing where customers are on a budget and they're gonna look to gain the most out of out of the budget that they have, right? And yet the global instability is causing a lot of of change here. Customers' values are changing. It's inconsistent behavior. And the there needs to be an understanding from the B2B world that it's a lot less predictable as to what their customers are expecting to have happened. You know, we we're seeing also this conflict where previously it was all about their own, you know, personal company preferences, but now there's a lot of ESG, you know, Sis sensitivity to the environment, on governance and sustainability, that that's also influencing, right, the product developments and product choices that are happening in the b to b market. And that means companies have to be really positioned to not underestimate these customer behaviors and the fact that their customers are multifaceted and they're doing their best to kind of adapt to the current situations. And because of the market changes, there are there's going to be a lot more of this focus on what they can use, spend their money on. So previously innovation would happen because they got a lot of money. You can say I want the best. I want something new. I wanna be competitive. I wanna show off, but now it's much more about what can I get out of the money that I have available this year? How do I best budget that money over the next year or two? Well, one of the things that I I really enjoy about our our collective industries over the last probably five or so years. And COVID obviously wasn't accelerant for this, but We I think we finally realized that our end users exist both in the home and in the office space, and they like they like some comfortability and familiarity and things like that. But, you know, one of the the trends, and you and I have actually had a chance to talk about this a little bit before off air, is, you know, technology has empowered things like community and empowering the human experience and, servicing the human condition You know, especially as you talk about maybe it's initiatives like ESG, more I I almost hate to call it, the lightweight stuff that feels derogatory. I promise not but but more of the heady lightweight stuff. We see a lot of these technologies really aiming to empower, that, whether it's ESG, communal based, whether it's DEI, all sorts of different things like that. Talk about the ways that you've seen that technology and some of that drive for the from the human condition, empower how we're we're developing and and delivering the technology. Most manufacturers weren't really caught off guard because their employees and their teams were actually experiencing the same upending scenarios, right? Meanwhile, we had ship and chip issues, right? We had struggled just to get products out the door. So they knew they had to be able to create products. And in fact, what we've seen is actually fairly rapid response. If you look at the typical time frame to deliver products, that are in demand, it's typically multiple months, not, you know, half three quarters of a year to get those products manufactured. And they actually turned around quite quickly in response to the the need to create these hybrid spaces. What I'm talking about is dominantly the the camera switching and the camera ability to crop images and create and stitch images so that people that were remote looked kind of consistent with people that were in the spaces. But what's what's happened here is that that there's really a a new strategy approach. Previously, companies wanted to create you know, an ecosystem where all their products worked effectively by their by their systems and everything's gonna be hunky dory. Now they're becoming up with these windshield wipers. The windshield wipers are are on the buses, and the buses are zoom and teams. And that made a lot that's quite why they're able to rapidly develop products because they had, you know, key issues of having to be certified and and meet these, platform demands, but has also exposed them to being much more vulnerable to to competition because now They're the same large companies at the same level as smaller ones to to, against the the market and and what, be what the customers were were, you know, have choices. A lot more choices. There's a lot less, partiality for one company over another because of the influences of the economy. It's at the lowest level, whether it's your consumer, whether you're you're in a business. You have choices to go to a different company. But meanwhile, the platforms now become the ones that wanna dominate, the story. And be, you know, you either on Zoom or you're on teams, clients wanna have both experiences They need both experiences, but they're prod the the platforms are reluctant to give that up because they don't want to give up the eyeballs. So we're really seeing the sort of race to the lowest price, you know, this red ocean competition on the product side. And and the certification really driving this. But I think what we're also seeing, if we step a little bit more deeper into this, Ben, that the concept around meeting equity and and the impact on these human desires to feel like you're part of the space. Where that's now happening, particularly is the when you want to be at home or you wanna be at the workplace, the new products tools need need to respond to that. And that isn't a camera. Right? That is software and its intelligence. And I think that's where the the AI influence is really gonna be important. We'll talk about that a little bit more. Yeah. And what's interesting too, and you touched on a little bit is we talk about this rapid development of technology where I might go with a provider today, but next month, there's another feature that comes out. And I wanna switch. Right? There's there's this, not that it didn't exist fully before, but there's almost this on demand immediacy effect. And ironically enough that is that is driven from the natural desire of, you know, we get a new cell phone every six months a year. We get all these different things, and I could turn on Netflix and watch whatever movie I wanted at any given time. And I I can go Amazon, and I could get something in two, three hours sometimes. It's interesting to see that play out in the the commercial and b to b technology world where innovation is expected to happen overnight. Right? We used to we used to have these full beta cycles and full preferred alpha users and things like that. But How has that need for on demand, whether it's just things like streaming or just on demand preferences in general impacted consumer preference or impacted, not only consumer preference, but, the b to b need for quick innovation. Yeah. That that's a great question. And and I'll do my best to answer this one because because there's a little it's it's really right on the edge. Right? I mean, we're seeing on this on the streaming market this shift from, you know, being within the channel to having having more choices and and people being willing to accept commercials, right, and accept programming, to have those choices. In fact, they've gotten to the point where, the TVs are coming out for free that give you a TV if you're willing to watch on another display, the commercials. Right? So we're we're looking at the options of, how to consume the content, play out. What we're we're if you take that into the into the commercial market, we're seeing a lot of more younger generations consuming content in different ways and ways. Right? One display or one stream of content is not sufficient anymore. I mean, people are consuming content like spectacle, right, playing or, you know, watching gamers play games while they're doing other things in, at the same time. And so where we had previously, you know, been myopic and you have one share, one share content in, in a meeting space or in a collaboration space, Now we need to see, and we're experiencing multiple content concurrently. That's the best example of that is, like, Microsoft front row where you're able to get you have to be able to see your chat, your content, and your streamed content, you know, your your other threaded content that's happening, in a completely different parallel, asynchronous and synchronous collaboration occurring simultaneously. And this is coming from, I think, a generation of people that have lived in this environment. They've they've had to con they're consuming more and more content in different channels simultaneously. So that that's what I think that's what we're gonna see more of that impact on the way we design spaces and the way we we integrate, a relationship of experience and personal, attention to the to the employee? Well, I'm curious too. I wanna kinda stick on a point that you brought up. Right? You talk about that that TV experience where folks are able to kinda have ads in the background or know, you look at lost leaders like the Amazon Alexa devices or the Roku devices streaming six, whatever. Those are typically lost leaders for those companies Is that something that you see transitioning to the b to b world where folks are saying, hey, we're willing to trade you technology for information at scale. Is that something that you're seeing happen regularly? No. I'm not seeing that yet, but there is the potential for that. The the service model is is the driver. Right? Just like with those, streaming services, you know, the subscription is where the revenue is. It's not the initial buy. So where the revenue streams are longer and the engagement with that with that company is longer, there's greater greater opportunity to, to, sell that service at a lower cost upfront. I mean, we we, for example, a company that may be doing, design services, at at one end and providing support at the other end may may reduce the fees that they're charging to a company as they as if they can extend their their engagement longer. So I I think that that would be an example of a loss leader, right, from a service side as opposed to a physical side. I'm not seeing as much of the manufacturers giving away, hardware. More still playing the game of of tech improvements, and yet they are substantially reducing introducing much lower cost, end products, that can do most of what the higher end used to do. You know, we're seeing that come up quite a bit now. So competing at that bleeding edge, low cost, value entry particularly in the display market, right, where it's kind of already matured, and I can get away with with a lot of displays that if I'm putting them in that don't have to have a lot of the smarts to them, and meanwhile, I could connect in with that same manufacturer and manage all those displays plus displays that are really critical spaces through the same portals. Well, Mark, now I've gotta ask. Right? We've talked a lot about the impact of consumers on B2Bates B2B technology. Wanna kinda flip that on its head a little bit. Right? Whether it's the the more affordability nature of of the technology or whether it's some of the the traditional buying cycles and channels or experiences expectations in the b to b world. How are you seeing the b to b side continue to influence the consumer side? Yeah. And I wanna make sure, Ben, we also get to this retail influence and what's happening there. Right? On the b to b side, if we look at what happened out of twenty eighteen with, with, five g being introduced and and where four g was introduced prior to that. The innovation gets bottled up during economic downturns. Right? And then they kind of launch themselves out, as soon as the economy gets going. Well, that's not quite consistent right now. Right? We know where we are in the world. But the the, process right now is that the out of that pandemic where companies really had to become innovative to be able to get products out the door and deal with supply shortages, is is certainly introduced a lot of, a lot of the drive. We didn't even know. Do we really know that we wanted, self driving cars? No. I mean, that that wasn't our choice. But it was something that's being was introduced by manufacturers. We're we're seeing a lot of that happening with a with autonomous vehicles and, unlocking features that were previously, you know, they're in the car But they are yet, I'll I know, you you don't have to have the heated seats. You you can unlock that feature when you need it. And we see that, of course, even Zoom conferencing is an example of where the industry kind of drove, what was happening into the into the consumer market. And artificial intelligence is really also a big part of this. Like, situation and emotional recognition that's happening in call centers now. So consumers are experiencing that, and now they're gonna want to have that capability in their devices and and that what will work for them. We're seeing the larger displays being made by these manufacturers, for bigger rooms and the technology that's happening in Direct View LED, bring coming down and more competitive for flat panels that consumers are buying. And so that that's actually another example of a shift where the innovations in commercial is is being brought into the consumer market. Well, in one of the places you see tons and tons of LED technologies in that retail world. Right? Whether it's digital signage display, virtual try on. That's one of the places, really, that you're seeing a lot of that symbiosis from the commercial and the consumer side happen as well. Can you elaborate on some of how those those retail store experiences and expectations are continuing to kind of play into the the influence of the the symbiosis? Yeah. No. This is a really interesting area because typically the consumer is seeing a completely different experience where they're doing e commerce when they're into retail. They're they're disconnected. And the brands are trying to stitch this back together. They wanna have sort of this what they call an omni channel where the content is consistent whether you're at home or online. Walmart's kinda leading the the example here of where companies are trying to become more consistent. And the biggest challenge has been the product content. The, the images that they're using on, what you see on, when you're shuffling through Amazon versus when when you're coming into a store, completely different, sources, and CGI, computer generated graphics and have opened the door to be able to allow for these many these retailers on their own or DIYI use this content, create content bring it into the digital domain and then apply it in multiple ways. And this is really quite exciting because we're seeing a lot of things like image tagging where there's you can identify the products that are in images, right? Without having to have any text I I, you know, I can identify those images and reverse that with cameras in the retail space identifying products that people are wearing without having any text and then utilizing that data to trigger content that's relevant to whatever they're seeing on those cameras without necessarily identifying and personifying the individuals themselves. And also, we're seeing things like placing product within new virtual spaces. Right? It isn't relevant unless I can see what that product looks like. In my space. And, obviously, that's happening, quite frequently now. You're seeing that, on these, e commerce show me what this looks like. Another example that is is augmented reality where Nike and other stores, so you you can create, of, the sneaker of your choice by doing image projection and and seeing the concept of what that that object will look like. Seeing in addressing rooms where people can try and buy, which wouldn't nearly be practical, sofas and things like that where they can see these images and and kind of replicate what it's actually gonna be in their space. And this concept now becomes really important in the commercial area because If you look at what we're trying to do in these spaces, like, put a two hundred thousand dollar display on a wall. Right? And you look at the product page of some of these, display manufacturers, you see a display. You have no context of what that actually is going to require. In fact, It takes more time, a lot more time to create the box that that display is gonna go into. Right? The setback on the wall height of it, the infrastructure, the ventilation, all of this work goes on for just one location. Right? And So there needs to be much more of a ability for manufacturers to carry over to the architect exactly what's going to look like. The the buyer is the owner. They're gonna be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on these products and they wanna know that there's an emotional connection. What what what's this gonna look like for me? How how's this gonna be in my space? Right? Not just any space. But my identity is associated with this buy. And so that there needs there's going to be a lot more of that utilization of of computer generated graphics to place these products early on in the development cycle in front of of the buyers, the B2B buyers, to make decisions quicker and faster and to implement and execute much faster than previously. Well, the retail world has been one of the places that you you always see kind of the bleeding edge of what's happening next from a consumer and a professional side. I hate to say professional we'll call it commercial side because there's always that Evan Flow happening, right, where, sometimes you'll see the retail community lean a little bit more towards the experiential side and the in store experience Other times, it'll add back to the e commerce side of things. And it's always been a really, really interesting place to look, towards kind of what's happening and what sort of pendulum swings we're gonna see next. Wanna ask you this to kinda land the plane. You know, Mark, when you look down the road five, ten years, what would you say excites you the most, about the the continued convergence of these two worlds? I guess this is they call it physical, like this term that the blending of the digital images and the physical experience And I think what excites me a lot right now is the effort to bring the awareness of situational awareness to the employee. Right? I I'm now when I'm going into the office spaces, not only do I need to know if a room is available. I wanna know where you are, Ben, where you're sitting, and I wanna be able to engage with you. You're not in the office all the time. Right? And up until now, I don't know when you're gonna be in the office and where you're gonna sit. And companies are recognizing that in order to bring people back into the spaces, in order to make them productive, they need to be able to create these personalized situations, and what we what what we're looking for then from these sort of where are where's Bend and Hey, let's go get a cup of coffee is something called collisions or, you know, and hopefully they'll come become digital, but if if we meet and we unintentionally, right, a lot of what we do right now is purposeful. We schedule meetings, we execute, and we go on our way. And we never have a chance to really intersect you know, and meet happenstance, but that's where creativity and spontaneity happens. That's where new insights happening because you're out of your regular typical zone and you're seeing things that you you normally don't see. What I'm hoping to see is that these products that are creating this opportunity for us to know where we are in such awareness will also create opportunities for us to collide to intersect unexpectedly. On the on the digital platforms. Right? So rather than just having, you know, your scheduled meetings, but having ways that I could see and meet with people, Some companies are taking this to the point where at the end of their town halls or end of their weekly or daily meetings, they'll have a five minute hit where they'll just put the entire call into subgroups so that people don't even know who they're going to be with for those last five minutes, and they're meeting with people unexpectedly. And this is what's really exciting to me is seeing the way that we can apply technology to behavior to create more opportunities to be innovative and spontaneous and personal, because there's been so much effort to kind of get out of the pandemic and productionize and shoot on a on a very tactical approach, which doesn't leave them as much emotional engagement as we need. Well, digital collisions that like its own podcast title, in its own right. And I think that's a great way to wrap up our conversation really centralizing it around that human experience by making sure that we as humans have an opportunity to be empowered by technology to, interact with each other and serve our community. So, Mark, I appreciate you. You've given us that feedback and jumping on the show today. And I'm sure we'll find a way to have you on very soon. Thank you, Ben. And thank you all for tuning in. Be sure to subscribe and join us again next time on Pro Yv today.