American Made

Within the Middle Eastern A/V market, AVI-SPL is a small player, but the American company is arguably the United States’ biggest systems integrator. So what are its plans for the region?

With just a small office in Dubai, a handful of full-time staff and a profile so low as to have so far gone unnoticed by many in the region, AVI-SPL is the kind of company that industry pundits could easily underestimate. To do so, however, would be a mistake. For as much as the systems integrator appears at first glance to be another small company picking up small contracts, the opposite is true. Look closer and you’ll realise that behind the modest means stands a giant. Indeed, AVI-SPL is arguably the biggest integrator in the United States, perhaps the world.

‘AVI-SPL is the result of a 2008 merger between Audio Visual Innovations (AVI) and Signal Perfection, Ltd. (SPL),’ says Don LaNeve, COO, AVI-SPL. ‘With more than 40 years of aggregate experience in the industry, AVI and SPL bring together long traditions of providing quality audio visual technology. Today, AVI-SPL has nearly 40 offices, 1,400 employees, and brought in US$422 million in revenue last year.’

Phil Marlowe, managing director charged with leading the company’s Middle East operation, states: ‘Recently we completed the New York Yankees Stadium in New York City,’ citing just one example of the super-projects that the company regularly tackles. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, however, he quickly adds: ‘We also completed a stadium for the Washington Nationals at the same time. That’s two giant stadiums, with the New York Yankees being the most expensive baseball stadium built in the history of the United States upon completion.’

A small number of projects are as impressive in this region, but none of the integrator’s vast experience and influence within its home territory and elsewhere is obvious from the low key approach it is taking to the GCC. ‘I’d say the biggest competitor reaction to us right now is ‘who is AVI-SPL?’ because we’re very small in this region,’ agrees Mr Marlowe. ‘We’re the largest A/V integrator in the world and in the United States based on revenue and based on employees, but if you look at us in the region, we’re one of the smallest.’

Indeed, even Mr Marlowe is himself something of a contradiction. He is startlingly young, yet so technically gifted and experienced that he has found himself spearheading his employer’s first foray into the Middle Eastern market. He freely concedes that this has proven challenging: ‘The older you are in a meeting, the more respect you get. That’s kind of true everywhere in the world, but it’s very predominant here.’

All of which leads to an irresistible question: why, with so much power at its disposal, is the company approaching the region with such a gentle touch? To find the answer, a curious visitor need only stop by Mr Marlowe’s office. Sitting within the two-floor unit, manned by just handful members of staff, is a fully built rack destined for a future AVI-SPL project, and the attention to detail that has been employed in its construction is breathtaking.

Every cable is meticulously labelled according to a system from which the company never deviates; every patch bay is named and signed for fast and easy identification. As Pro Audio Middle East intently examines the work of this small but remarkable team, Mr Marlowe enthusiastically explains the philosophy behind every rack that AVI-SPL builds: that anyone should be able to take it apart and reassemble it, just by following the labels. Therein lies the answer to every contradiction presented by the company’s approach to the region – it could throw overwhelming resources at the Middle East, but its work is so impressive that it simply doesn’t have to.

‘Our executive management constantly asks us what we’re capable of, what the office could do if it added more staff,’ reflects Mr Marlowe. ‘But it’s not about throwing tons of people at a job and getting more projects; it’s about getting the right projects, executing them well and building a relationship with clients.’

Few UAE-based projects within recent years have been quite as attention-grabbing as the Dubai Mall, the development which not only introduced AVI-SPL to the region but also convinced Mr Marlowe that it was worth staying. Crucially, it was also the first demonstration of how the US integrator chooses to work, rejecting many of the techniques that have come to characterise elements of the Middle Eastern industry in favour of its own methods.

‘It was very high profile,’ agrees Mr Marlowe. ‘With the Dubai Mall, we ran the project with a staff of only four. Our competitors were offering staffs of 40 or 50, up in the hundreds in some cases. But our project managers have been doing this for a very long time and are very seasoned. You may say that we’re more of a construction company than an A/V company. Especially on new construction projects versus retrofits, we know the process; we know what has to happen.’

He adds: ‘It’s a big thing in the Middle East to throw a lot of people at one thing – we view things a little differently. I’d rather take the money for throwing 100 people at a project and use it to put 10 people who want to be at work every day, who love their job and are passionate, and who want to see a happy client at the end of the day.’

However, covering huge projects with a small staff depends not only on the enthusiasm of the team you lead, but the tools they are given. It is here that AVI-SPL believes it can win with its Standards Document – a slab of a book dictating every facet of the company’s activity, from the fonts used on labels to the proper conduct of client relations.

‘Our American standard has been 40 plus years in the making. It covers everything from our CAD standards and our rack standards down to our cable dress to the way we terminate in the field, our asset tracking, and our labelling. It all translates into one nice, neat package,’ explains Mr Marlowe. ‘We base everything on it, and it allows us to pick up any cable in the field and immediately know what it is.’ The project manager adds, perhaps somewhat unnecessarily, that the company is ‘very, very detail oriented.’

Nor is the integrator’s dedication to following a set process limited to its rack building. ‘Every client receives a comprehensive operations manual,’ enthuses Mr Marlowe. ‘It’s an A5-sized, fully hard-covered, bound operations manual that shows screen-shots of their system, and shows them how to operate it. If a manager quit and a new manager came in, he could look at this book and run the audio system clearly step-by-step.’

AVI-SPL invests heavily in employee training and it’s been a very important factor in the company’s success. ‘Our Tech Academy is a technical training and career path program for our employees,’ says Mr LaNeve. ‘Employees can enter the program at any technical or management level and receive a combination of classroom and on-the-job training that allows them to qualify for promotions and pay increases.’ Additionally, all of AVI-SPL’s training programs are eligible for continuing education credits from InfoComm International, an industry trade and accrediting organisation.

‘Our company drive is not only tailored for the Middle East but this is worldwide. All of our systems are the same and held to the same standard. All of our AutoCAD engineers and technicians work off the same standard, the same templates,’ said Mr Marlowe.

All of this attention to detail is aimed towards one goal: reducing service costs. ‘Technician number one will go to a project and remove a piece of equipment for service, diagnose it, take it away and send it off,’ he says. ‘But when it comes back, that technician might not be available, so we send in technician number two. But he didn’t see the rack opened up, and he may not be as familiar with it. With our system, all of our drawings have every line, and every wire has a wire number, and every wire number has a destination flag and a port flag – you know exactly where that cable plugs in. It cuts our labour down significantly. If I send a technician on site to remove a piece of equipment, he may be 30 minutes. But if I have to send a technician back on site to an equipment rack that doesn’t have anything labelled, so he doesn’t have any idea where anything goes, then he could be there for a few hours easily.’

Herein lies the formula that Mr Marlowe believes is uniquely fitted to the Middle Eastern industry – AVI-SPL is both powerfully experienced, with all the power and knowledge of a multinational to draw upon, yet small enough within the region to keenly negotiate the toughest contracts. It is a plan to secure the best of both worlds, and so far it has been remarkably successful. Very recent AVI-SPL projects include the exclusive Caramel Bar and Restaurant in Dubai and the extremely high profile Hakkasan Restaurant within Abu Dhabi’s Emirates Palace, with another two very high profile, unnamed projects currently underway.

‘We have a proven track record of opening on day one – if you want the system operational on April 1st, then it’ll be operation on April 1st,’ Mr. Marlowe stresses. ‘We’re educating clients on this – a lot of clients don’t understand that when we say we’ll be ready, we will be ready. It’s caught us by surprise on a few projects when the client has said they’re opening on a certain day, and then that day comes and goes and the client calls us to ask why we’re not on site. It’s because we’re done! It’s tested, it’s commissioned and it’s working.’

The managing director’s enthusiasm for the regional industry also remains undiminished in the face of the global economic downturn. ‘The way we see it is that there were a lot of projects put on hold two years ago, and now that banks are starting to lend money again, these projects are coming back online. As everybody knows, A/V technicians are always the last in the building. So it’s good for us because the construction on most of these buildings is already finished but there’s nothing inside yet. Now they’re spending the money to fit them out. Plus Abu Dhabi is a very strong market for us. We’re putting a very strong presence towards it from a sales and marketing standpoint.’ Nor is the plan limited to the UAE. ‘We’ve recently started doing some work in Oman. When we first visited we thought there wasn’t very much there, but Muscat is growing quickly. We think that Muscat and Qatar are going to be the next largest markets.’

Not every project is right though, as Mr Marlowe adds: ‘There have been projects that have come up and we’ve refused them. That’s the one thing you learn about us – if we don’t think we can complete a project on time and on budget, then we won’t take the project. It ruffles feathers sometimes and people may think we’re strange for doing it. But our strongest advantage in this market is our reputation and we want to keep that reputation as high as possible.’

AVI-SPL is currently focused on bringing unified communication solutions to its customers such as video conferencing and telepresence. This technology provides face-to-face interaction for organisations to conduct productive meetings across the world. ‘As the economy contracts, we’re seeing businesses and government agencies looking at ways to reduce travel costs,’ says Mr LaNeve. ‘And this technology offers the perfect solution for companies to do business from multiple locations across the globe at a much reduced cost.’

At first look it’s easy to underestimate AVI-SPL, and the man who leads its presence in the region, but to do is to overlook the wisdom that lays behind Mr Marlowe’s plan for the Middle East. While many of the region’s most successful integrators win contracts by flexing their corporate and manpower muscles, this American company is instead drawing on its experience to push standards as high as possible even as it keeps its costs comfortably low. Mr Marlowe has a clear idea of what can be achieved from his Dubai office, and he has a plan to make it happen.

www.avispl.com