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What Audio Customers Want

What audio customers want — observations from Nureva

BY: Nancy Knowlton

First, a caveat. My comments about a new breed of audio buyers are based on what I see and experience versus a global statement about the market more generally. At Nureva, we talk to people who want to talk to us because our message resonates with them. We see them as a new breed of buyer in higher education and corporate with progressive views on how technology products can and should perform. We see this group as ahead of the curve in so many ways, and it is our plan to address their evolving needs.

A New Breed of Audio Buyers

What was once traditionally the domain of AV is shifting to be led by IT types — people concerned with broad-based deployments, network security, manageability, the cloud and infrastructure — among other things. We see an increasing movement of AV professionals into IT departments, with the AV skillset and knowledge that these individuals bring valued as part of their roles.

When we first developed our products, it was IT directors who were our target customers. We sought to understand the day-to-day operating world from their perspective and set about creating a product that would meet their needs. We spoke their language and delivered on their terms.

Then, almost one by one, they came forward. They talked to us about their needs and aspirations. They showed us rooms with racks in them and said they didn’t want to deploy and support this kind of architecture anymore. They told us about the need to get every room ready for remote collaboration — not just a few high-end rooms that could be lavished with money and attention.

They expressed an IT perspective with simplicity at the top of their list of requirements. They also wanted ease of installation, remote management, full-room pickup and great quality. They demanded solutions that just worked, that were reliable, that integrated with other products and that got better over time. We listened — and we continue to do so.

It might be tempting to think that these new buyers of audio solutions are young and it’s their youth that’s driving this new view and the new requirements. In our experience, that would be wrong. It is people of all ages who are driving a new vision for their organizations. They dare to believe that there’s a new way of thinking about solutions and performance, and they consequently ask more of their tech products. They’re using the pandemic experience, budget challenges and evolving end-user collaboration needs to challenge the status quo and imagine a new, enabled environment.

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We’ve found that customers’ needs when deploying to every space are radically different than when deploying to a handful of spaces. Before the pandemic, adoption of full UCC solutions limped along at a relatively slow pace. The pandemic changed all that with so many IT leaders adopting the mindset of being ready for a partial or full return to the office. That helped to sharpen their thinking about needs and deployment.

This new breed of audio buyer is based on our engagement with buyers who align with our vision of an “IT first” approach where the technology — not people — does the heavy lifting.

Nancy Knowlton of Nureva About the Author: Nancy Knowlton is the president and CEO of Nureva, a company she co-founded with her husband David Martin in 2014. Prior to establishing Nureva, they built the global tech brand SMART Technologies, which introduced interactive whiteboard to millions of classrooms and boardrooms worldwide.

Knowlton holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in business administration and has a background as a chartered accountant and university lecturer. She has contributed to several public and private commissions on education and business and has earned numerous prestigious awards that nclude the Canadian Woman Entrepreneur of the Year and the C21 Shifting Minds National Award for her distinctive achievements in 21st-century learning and innovation.

In 2022, Knowlton was inducted into the Alberta Business Hall of Fame in recognition of her pioneering achievements in technology and her significant contributions to the economic development and prosperity of Alberta. Most recently, in March 2024, Nancy and David were awarded the prestigious Meritorious Service Decorations (Civil Division) for their exceptional contributions to improving education opportunities for children in Canada and abroad.

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