Sure, geek squad and Magnolia are under the Best Buy umbrella, but how many people would let them do true high end? Would you buy a 32-zone Crestron system from them? What about Wilson MAXX 3's?
Exactly. I wouldn't either.
So why hasn't AV been scalable on the consumer side? What is the problem? Why does commercial 'custom' AV work and consumer 'custom' not translate?
Look at the CE-Pro100. Most of those people on the list would at best be considered small businesses. Sure, there are one or two that have done well, but you likely won't see any of them get much larger any time soon nor will you see any mergers or take overs.
Now, take a look at the SCN top 50. Of the top 10 7 did over $100 million and the biggest did $400+ million?! Why doesn't this sort of thing happen in consumer? What are the differences? How can residential be more like commercial? How do we scale up?
I do know that every residential AV company i've ever spoken with or worked for does everything in a different manner. In office programmers, outsourced programmers, this speaker is flavor of the month, now this speaker gives better margins, in house wire pullers, subbing your wiring to electricians. Every place is different; it's like an electronic equivalent of snow flakes.
What consumer 'custom' AV really needs is a lead dog. Someone like an Apple, or WalMart or VW group. Someone who can rise above and provide the industry direction and force the hand of some of the manufacturers. Someone who can force the industry to create and innovate or be run over. Sure, P.C. Richards, BestBuy and WalMart sell billions in AV but it's a totally different world. Someone has to be the common enemy for 'custom'. Someone who does it better and really shakes up the big ego's in small AV.
It sounds odd, but it will give us all something to work on and improve. Everyone needs a good scare once in a while.
Sometimes a massive competitor is the best thing for an industry.
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