2018 Top Integrators: Market Forecast

Along with our annual Top 50 Systems Integrators feature, we polled a selection of leading firms on industry topics.

SCN: What vertical markets and/or technologies exhibited the most growth for you in 2018?

Dave Berlin, President, Video Corporation of America

One challenge that we have been aggressively targeting is the lack of concrete data utilization by end users when they are planning workplace expansions or upgrades. While the data is out there, and it’s common to talk about, the practice of using it is still new and unpracticed for many of our clients. As a result, we are actively advocating for our clients to adopt room and device utilization data in their space planning. In many cases, this has proven to be as simple as asking the question and leading the efforts. For others, it involves demonstrating how device management software can be used to create detailed room usage reports. This information also highlights end user training needs and opportunities to improve enterprise standards.

Rhonda Wingate, VP of Visual Collaboration Sales, Carousel Industries

We continue to see consistent growth across all vertical markets, with healthcare, financial services, and higher education being the strongest. These are all very competitive markets and it is becoming increasingly critical to driving the adoption of highly innovative collaboration tools within client organizations to improve communication and increase productivity, and efficiency.

Michael V. DiBella, Vice President of Marketing, IVCi

We saw tremendous growth in the financial sector. They are embracing trends for technology that extend past the traditional conference room and that fit our core competency of innovation. Another key driving trend is advanced lobbies featuring elaborate digital signage.

Michael Fornander, CEO, Neurilink

Over the past several years, a large part of our growth has come from the enterprise and medical sectors of the business in the areas of corporate relocation, new office builds, and territory expansion.

Steve Alexander, Director of Sales, Avidex

Avidex has expanded in multiple verticals over the past year, including the K-12 education market. We are also seeing a lot of growth in the implementation of specialty and unified collaboration spaces, which we think provides a telling metaphor about the evolution of our market.

Jeff Irvin, Principal, Spinitar

Higher education remained hot in 2018, exceeding 40 percent of our overall business mix.  We’re seeing more and more demands for LED, and expect continued growth for that technology in the coming year. Huddle spaces/rooms have now become the norm, and have officially become a room category being called out for by our clients.

John Godbout, Founder and CEO, CCS Presentation Systems

The commercial market has been the largest one for us this year. The LED video wall was probably the product where we saw the most growth.  

Philip Giffard, President, Integration Division, Solotech

Our largest growth—in terms of technology—comes from LED displays and video streaming products. So it’s no surprise that we’ve seen an increase in business from sporting venues.

Click here to see the SCN Top 50 2018.

Read more on the SCN Top 50:

2018 Top 50: AV Excellence

2018 Top Integrators: Experience Design

2018 Top Integrators: Challenges for 2018

Megan A. Dutta

Megan A. Dutta is a pro AV industry journalist, and the former content director for Systems Contractor News (SCN) and Digital Signage Magazine, both Future U.S. publications. Dutta previously served as the marketing communications manager at Peerless-AV, where she led the company’s marketing and communications department. Dutta is the recipient of AVIXA's 2017 Young AV Professional Award and Women in Consumer Technology's 2018 Woman to Watch Award. Dutta is co-founder of Women of Digital Signage, an organization designed to provide a pathway to promote networking, mentoring, and personal growth.