A + V

Standardisation – Create your professional AV office standard

There is a lot of aspects of standardisation and it is being applied in all industries. As consumers get used to a certain standard of products they are buying, and manufacturers use standardisation as positioning tool, professional AV integrators can promote creation of an office AV standard, to help their customers improve adoption of the new solutions.

Overall standardisation can boost the user satisfaction and make it easier to understand what they are purchasing and what functionality it will provide them with.

Let’s start from the beginning.

What is standardisation in office AV environment?

Here at A+V we have created a catalogue of office audiovisual standards for corporations, which include a selection of A+V meeting room packages, explaining each solution’s functionality and technological features of spaces. We have received a very positive feedback from our clients, who have found the catalogue of standards useful in their decision-making process and consider it a practical tool in understanding what they are looking for.

You can build your AV office standard from the following elements:

1.  Communication standard (defined by A+V):
   • Offline – (Presentation only) is a basic AV equipment in the meeting room, allowing presentation of any multimedia content from a laptop on the presenter’s display screen.
   • Ready – is a content of the OFFLINE package upgraded with a camera, microphone(s) and sound , enabling a videoconference management through a participant’s laptop with a video conferencing software installed.
   • Online – currently the most popular standard, is an upgrade of the READY package, including a device with a video conferencing software and a touch panel, permanently placed in the conference room.
2. Communication platform (i.e. Zoom, Teams, Google, Cisco, BlueJeans etc.)
3. Brand of the equipment – display screens, video conferencing sets etc. according to your IT safety standard requirements

Based on our experience gained through numerous implementations and consultations on office AV standards with global corporates, we can list a number of benefits of standardisation in the office environment. These would be different for a HR professional, finance manager, company CEO and the user themselves – starting from user experience, through efficient operation of the facility, finishing with strategic buying. Hence I shall pick the main benefits I see applicable to more general audience.

Benefits of office AV standardisation:

• Better adoption of your communication platform and workplace environment
• Consistent quality in each office location and each meeting room
• Simplified user training
• Professional look and feel of the AV systems
• Professional image of the team and your company
• Creating comfortable & efficient working environment
• Simple, intuitive operation – better user experience
• Bulk buy cost savings

Now, once you have been convinced that you need the office AV standardisation, we can take you on a journey of creating your office AV standard.

What to consider when creating your office AV standard?

There are a few factors to consider when creating your office AV standard, and we explain why these are important – these are as follows:

• Employees needs – workstyles and employees types
  Standard needs analysis process is the most important part of any project and participation of each department representation is VITAL. User’s questionnaire is a good tool to gather the information and define those needs – invite the right people to this process of needs analysis and formulate the questionnaire together.
• Size of the space/room
  Is it a small room (Huddle room, Focus room), medium meeting room, a training room or large meeting and conference room? The amount and type of equipment needed in each type of the space will be different as it needs to cover different amount of people and play various functions.
• Purpose of the space/room
  What is this space used for? Is it for quiet working, brainstorming meetings, training sessions or management announcements and socialising? Each purpose will dictate different functionality of the AV system, so it is important to define those purposes.
  Townhall or reception areas can be multi-functional spaces, used for team meetings, but also for performances, gaming arena, visitors or clients welcome, team building activities etc. Make sure you include all relevant purposes in your consideration.
• Communication platform
  It is common that some of your departments would communicate via one communication platform (i.e. MS Teams, Webex), while the others would schedule meetings on another platform (i.e. Zoom, Google Meet etc.). Consistency results in better adoption which can lead to better efficiency of the team, so we recommend focusing on one platform in your office AV standard.
• Office layout
  It is important to consider the impact of one space on the other, i.e. a staff canteen or a gameroom could have negative impact on the meeting room nearby due to noise – and there are Av solutions that can minimise this impact.

We are confident there is a number of specialties and competencies in your team that could have the knowledge of IT, facilities management and procurement. Although, at the beginning of the journey you should find trusted partner, who specializes in AV and videoconferencing systems. The AV expert has the knowledge and understanding of acoustics, project management, videoconference systems, multi-disciplinary guidelines and requirements of the well-designed audio-visual system tailored to your IT network. Think of a modern integrator and workplace expert that can fill in that gap.

Once you have made all your considerations and defined your needs and requirements, you can enter the new path of making your plan a project.

Tips on implementing your new AV office standard:

• Know your end users’ needs
• Existing AV system audit
• Partner with and AV integrator
• Visit show rooms
• Try out a demo kit
• Plan your implementation
• Workshops with staff and AV integrator
• User training

Standarisation can definitely help companies create a better and safer working environment for their employees. They will appreciate a smoother implementation and a faster adoption in the process which will support efficiency of the people and resources – which can translate into better financial results.

Contact a modern AV integrator to consult on your AV office standard. We are here to help!

 

This atricle has been published in CIO Review Magazine – CHECK IT OUT HERE