Proavmagazine.com - Before InfoComm, the National Systems Contractor Association released its Q3 2009 Market Intelligence Briefing. Titled "Vertical Market Application Trends Update," it revisits a topic the association examined in January 2007 to help understand what technologies were being deployed in which markets (members can download it here). The goal, obviously, is to spot trends and identify areas of growth. Some of the data makes perfect sense. There's also a compelling surprise or two.

The research was done once again by the folks at Stiernberg Consulting. And it's important to note that the underlying survey was conducted among NSCA members, who traditionally have strong roots in audio applications. As such, the no. 1 application/technology that respondents said they were involved with was audio, either in fixed installations or live sound.

The study is broken down between systems integrators and consultants. Interestingly--and this is one compelling surprise--both groups cited life safety (i.e. fire, security, and CCTV systems) as a significant growth area. For integrators, it was the biggest growth category, with 9.3% more respondents saying they were involved in life safety projects today than in 2007.

Among consultants, the biggest jump was in automation and control systems (a 21.1% increase), with life safety a close second.

In fact, when probed further, 22.2% of integrators said life safety was their top revenue generator. Only audio installations drew more respondents (28.8%) for bringing in the most revenue. (Video, perhaps not surprisingly owing to the commoditization of products like displays, was much further down the list of top revenue-generators).

When asked what application or technology they were best known for, integrators in NSCA's research also ranked audio and life safety nos. 1 and 2, respectively. In these 2009 rankings, life safety overtook A/V, described in the survey by display technology and interface control.

Looking ahead, what applications are integrators planning to offer more of? According to the results, media streaming and interactive displays top the list overall. But it's interesting to see which integrators say what. For instance, broken down by revenue, it's the smaller integrators who are more likely to be getting into IT applications like media streaming and Web-based systems (see table below).



(Source: NSCA Q3 2009 Market Intelligence Briefing, Vertical Market Application Trends Update)

And in what vertical markets do NSCA's integrators and consultants say they're working in? Most of the growth from 2007 to now has been in the health care, government, and university markets. The drops have come in restaurants/retail (where I suspect digital signage is taking hold but AV integrators aren't getting all that business); concert halls/performing arts centers/clubs and sports bars; and, well, anything residential.

The top 7 verticals for NSCA integrators in 2009:

Corporate/industrial
Government, municipal
K-12 schools
House of worship
Universities and colleges
Health care facilities
Hotels and convention centers
What's interesting, when you dig a little further into the numbers, is that whereas the health care vertical in 2007 was mainly for communications applications (intercom, etc.),  AV and video are now among the top technologies integrators say they're putting into health care facilities.

Looking ahead, integrator respondents say health care will be their top target in the coming years, followed by hotels/convention centers, government facilities, and universities/colleges.

I could go on and on. It's a 72-page report filled with insight. As the Stiernbergs write in the executive summary, "Demand is stimulated by knowledge of what’s possible on an applications level, and the challenge here is to convert venue end-users’ views of systems and solutions from 'nice to have' to 'essential.'"

 Focusing your efforts takes knowing where the opportunities lie.