We’re pleased to have AV magazine’s Clive Couldwell in this edition’s guest editor spot. Uniquely qualified to comment, he takes a view on the role AV might play in the future, arguing that the ways many companies now choose work depends on AV more than ever before. Something that should make optimists of us all.

A new era

AV’s role has become enterprise-wide and strategic. In fact, it’s good to see where the AV ‘vision’ now sits in top companies – Bloomberg, Google, Apple and eBay to name but a few – as technological disruption is being felt across sectors, geographies and all layers of an organisation’s workforce, creating both new applications and new ways of working.

It’s about breaking down barriers as organisations seize on the opportunity of greater speed, efficiency and accuracy which emerging developments in technology promise. To be successful, companies have to be able to connect everyone in their organisation, not just the C-suite or top managers, or even all their knowledge workers. This means connecting every single person at a company, including employees who don’t have desks, who’ve typically never been truly a part of their organisations before.

Empowered to make decisions

Once connected people can collaborate far more with others with whom they share no formal reporting relationship or physical location to achieve results and are empowered to make decisions more rapidly, with our without executive assent.

Companies have to provide AV technology and the right environment to support this new way of working.

If this comes as a surprise, it shouldn’t do. In a ‘modern’ agile company this is how you should be viewing AV – at the heart of your business. With organisations becoming borderless, more mobile, they’re relying increasingly on systems that support new working strategies. AV is underpinning the lot as it becomes ever more responsive to business needs. Indeed many enterprises have embraced AV because of the business benefits it brings.

AV’s disruptive power

AV’s disruptive with the power to radically change business processes and culture. It also sits at the pinnacle of the user experience. It has the potential to create environments where anything we can imagine can be effectively, efficiently and inspirationally presented – enabling us to communicate in ways that otherwise would be impossible.

Its ability to create experiences transcends the sum of its parts.

AV uses IT, but AV provides the magic. The integrative experience, or ‘IX’ emphasises the importance of the user experience and the role the AV industry plays in ensuring this experience produces desired outcomes.

The kinds of capabilities and the requirements of the future for those working with AV won’t just be an understanding of the tech, it will be an understanding of innovation and creativity.