Product Article: Managing the Costs and Opportunities in Next-Generation Control Systems with AMX and ihiji



By Jonathan Pengilley, Habitech. In a world of falling hardware margins and increasing AV/IT integration, your business is challenged from all sides. Not only do you have to stay on top of a fast- moving technical scenario, you also need to keep wealthy and demanding clients happy and build-in sufficient reward for your trouble. So how do you build a model that will sustain your business in an ever more competitive market? First, you will need to fit the most versatile home automation interface in order to differentiate your design and to handle future control expansion and sophistication. Second, you will need to control the costs of your installation, especially when you have to buy-in third-party programming expertise. Third, you will need to work out how to maintain the revenue stream once you have collected the cheque from your happy customer. [caption id="attachment_5970" align="aligncenter" width="425"] How do you maintain the revenue stream once you have collected the cheque from your happy customer?[/caption] While the first two are self-evident, it is the third consideration that still remains under-exploited by custom integrators. When 'performance' is measured in time as well as pixels, sound quality and network speed, the reliability of your work can be used to build your reputation and guarantee future sales. Paradoxically, the better you are at making sophisticated design serve your client's every need, the more they will rely on it and be willing to pay for its long-term up-keep and viability. Their desire for easy, powerful control all of the time will help you to generate a vital component of your prosperity. The Service Contract The service contract is a beautifully-circular arrangement with mutual benefits. Believe me, your wealthy clients will be happy to sign, valuing their peace of mind as much as the bragging rights afforded by the swanky new screens, audio systems and network control. In reality, the business model for custom install should begin with the product rather than end with it. I believe that as an industry, we have failed to fully appreciate and exploit an irrefutable truth: there is bigger business in maintaining happy customers and relationships. Commercial installation companies have for years relied on their aftersales as a prime revenue source; alarm companies supply all the hardware at cost and make their money from the perceived value of 24 hour call-outs. These businesses are making a virtue of reliability as a valuable commodity - like the guarantee on a new freezer but on a much larger and more lucrative scale. And while white goods customers may have spied the ruse - it is easy to replace a cheap freezer - a complex home automation system is altogether a different and more 'productive' animal. Partnering with Habitech and AMX A more objective approach to aftersales will be a powerful weapon in the fight against thinner hardware margins, but in order to up the value of your work before the service contract is signed, you will need to arm yourself with a careful choice of automation technology and a productive relationship with your supplier. High technical barriers to entry and unpredictable programming manpower can be sorted by partnering with a distributor who is committed to adding value. At Habitech I think we have made the product decisions and investments that will ease your challenges and choices. For instance, I am confident that we can guarantee the power and quality of your customer's user interface by partnering with the world's most recognised control brand. In terms of integration and capability, everything becomes possible when AMX is properly supported, correctly deployed and knowledgably programmed. We are backing the brand and our customers with the tools necessary to help our installation partners specify great systems, supported by our training, in-house system design, project drawings, system programming and user interface design. [caption id="attachment_5971" align="aligncenter" width="600"] The AMX Modero family of control panels.[/caption] Through AMX and Habitech you are more able to clear the technical hurdles and realise the level of control versatility your customers will desire and value - bringing the prospect of lucrative aftersales support much nearer. In addition, and uniquely, we are offering you greater operational certainty by committing to a fixed cost for a given project once the scope of works and schedule of services have been agreed. In this way you do not have the headache of managing costs that can quickly spiral beyond the original estimate when, for example, an independent programmer does not finish the job because they have another somewhere in the Caribbean and you end up paying three times the original quote just to get it completed. Monitoring with ihiji When the project is completed, we will help you to apply the final piece of the model with a further Habitech brand. Our recent deal with 'ihiji invision' turbo-charges your after-sales proposition by offering a secure cloud-based, Linux-driven gateway for the remote monitoring, servicing, and maintenance of system architecture, which is built exclusively for custom install and is easy to implement and use. [caption id="attachment_5969" align="aligncenter" width="600"] The ihiji invision dashboard gives an overview of the status of residences being monitored.[/caption] Rather than establish a pinging contact, which simply verifies that the product is there, ihiji invision interrogates each device for a far more accurate view of its status, continuously monitoring and detecting minor as well as potentially critical errors. [caption id="attachment_5967" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Overview of the devices being monitored in a given residence.[/caption] What is more, when ihiji invision makes the connection with its servers through a firewall, it creates a way back in, avoiding the blocking commonly associated with less-advanced remote maintenance systems. [caption id="attachment_5968" align="aligncenter" width="600"] ihiji invision interrogates each device for an accurate view of its status.[/caption] ihiji's support from Crestron, Control4, AMX, and a number of other manufacturers means that invision will actively manage a wide variety of products, including entertainment, network, HVAC, and lighting systems. It offers you the ability to fix your clients' home electronic systems before they even know a problem exists, saving you the cost of a site visit, upping the value of your service to them and symbiotically, their willingness agree valuable, enduring service terms. [caption id="attachment_5966" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Map of clients being monitored using ihiji invision.[/caption] Conclusion Like every other service provider, you are selling performance and peace of mind; as a business you are driving down costs. Make each of these elements reward your enterprise, and long after commissioning, your customer relationships will be returning value to your bottom line. We are here to help you make that happen. Jonathan Pengilley is the Managing Director of Habitech, a value added distributor of home entertainment and home automation products. www.habitech.co.uk

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