• Hybrid & Remote Work

Summary

• Audiovisual consulting is crucial for competitive enterprises aiming to maintain productivity and flexibility in hybrid work environments. It ensures that both technology and personnel are set up for success.
• ET Group offers custom hybrid work solutions that focus on aligning technology with business strategies. This includes understanding stakeholder needs, analyzing the insights and data gathered from stakeholders, creating conceptual designs and prototypes, testing and iterating those prototypes, and building a detailed design.
• Working with an AV consultant from ET Group not only addresses your current needs but also supports long-range business development, ensuring the best return on your investment.

How Audiovisual Consulting Provides Key Support for Hybrid Work Environments

Hybrid working is the natural model for competitive enterprises that want to remain productive while providing the flexibility required by their teams. But creating a successful hybrid work environment is about more than the AV technology you implement—it’s first and foremost about better understanding the people who use the technology and what their needs, challenges, and use cases are on a daily basis.

ET Group provides custom hybrid work solutions that help organizations achieve their goals and empower their employees. Our audiovisual technology consulting services are unique in that they prioritize human experience—we believe that technology should always serve people instead of the other way around.

Below, we explain to you why an AV consultant can be vital for supporting your hybrid AV and IT infrastructure and show you some of the key challenges it can help you solve.

The Purpose of Audiovisual Consulting

Audiovisual technology consulting involves expert guidance and management services to help organizations align technology with business strategies. Ideally, these services should set an organization up to assess its existing audiovisual, collaboration, and IT infrastructure, identify areas for improvement, and implement solutions that boost both productivity, engagement, and employee satisfaction.

Challenges with Conventional Technology Consulting

Unfortunately, conventional approaches to technology consulting have a tendency to focus on technology to the exclusion of the people it’s meant to serve. This approach often fails because it does not properly engage or account for the user’s true wants, needs, or experiences.

ET Group’s Human-Centric Approach

Our approach at ET Group puts people first and technology second. We use a flexible five-step process rooted in design thinking—a nonlinear iterative methodology that focuses on understanding the human beings at the heart of a given problem and finding innovative ways to address their needs.

See Also: 7 Design Thinking Principles that Will Help Hybrid Work Succeed

These five phases are designed with enough flexibility to accommodate each organization’s unique needs, while also ensuring that the solutions we create are practical and data-driven. They include:

• Understanding stakeholder needs
• Analyzing insights and data
• Conceptual design and prototyping
• Testing and iterating
• Building a detailed design

Below, we’ll walk you through each of these areas and provide details on the steps involved so that you can see how and why our audiovisual consulting underpins effective hybrid design at each stage.

Phase 1: Understanding Stakeholder Needs

The first stage of our process focuses on identifying and understanding your needs as an organization: who you are, what you’re trying to achieve, and what specific challenges are between you and your goals. During this phase, we typically:

• Gather data about your current technology environment
• Conduct stakeholder interviews to identify core wants and needs
• Observe key workflows to better understand your strengths and areas for improvement

See Also: The 7 Most Common Problems in an IT Work Environment & How to Fix Them

Phase 2: Aligning Priorities – Analyzing Insights & Data

Next, we examine the data collected in Phase 1 and use our findings to suggest concrete next steps that speak to your needs. This step takes place during a meeting with all key stakeholders, where you can expect us to:

• Present data-driven insights that define the gaps in your organization
• Work with you to ensure alignment on the core priorities of your project

It’s important to note that while your input is welcome at every stage of our audiovisual consulting process, it’s particularly valuable in this phase. Ensuring a mutual understanding of what we’re setting out to accomplish and why makes the next steps more efficient and produces significantly better results.

Phase 3: Conceptual Design & Prototyping

During this phase, we work with you to create a sampler of possible technology solutions. Our use of VR, 3D models, concept drawings, and more allows you to explore available solutions in detail before you commit substantial resources to any of them—ultimately helping you make the best choice for your organization when it’s time to invest. We focus on:

• Creating detailed key use cases that illustrate how each system will respond to different user requests
• Creating low-cost prototypes that illustrate the potential value of each available solution
• Experience and interact with concepts in a virtual environment 

This is a co-creative process—we create mockups that encourage you to interact as much as possible with each potential solution so you can make the most informed decisions possible.

See Also: Can Design Thinking Bring Clarity to the Hybrid Work Experience?

Phase 4: Testing & Iterating

Once we’ve worked together to select prototypes and begin creating them, we initiate a co-creative process that allows you to provide feedback as each design is further realized. This involves:

• Testing each prototype using approaches such as virtual reality
• Holding workshops to provide opportunities for feedback and gain clarity on which new changes will result in the maximum possible impact
• Using our findings to enhance each prototype and ensure continued alignment with project priorities
• Review preliminary budgets with key decision-makers

Phase 5: Building a Detailed Design

Finally, it’s time to bring your selected prototype into the real world and scale it for your organization. Our team will:

• Develop a detailed plan for the final project (including construction drawings, layouts, material lists, and more)
• Coordinate with key experts on your project (e.g. architects, mechanical and electrical engineers)
• Present the design to key stakeholders alongside an updated budget
• Begin coordinating design processes and activities

You receive a complete package with everything you need to meet the needs established in the first phase of our consulting process—guaranteeing that the solution you receive is one based on the actual problems your people need to solve, and providing measurable value for your organization.

Find the Expert Technology Advice You Need to Grow Your Organization

Technology is only one aspect of creating an effective hybrid environment. Investing in the guidance required to select, implement, and scale that technology as your business grows guarantees you the best possible ROI and provides a superior experience for everyone at your organization who uses it.

To learn more about optimizing your workplace with help from our experts, book a discovery call with ET Group or read the Frequently Asked Questions below.

Frequently Asked Questions about Audiovisual Consulting

How do I know what kind of audiovisual consulting and technology my business needs?

You don’t have to know what specific solutions you’re looking for when you come to us. Our audiovisual consulting process begins with an in-depth audit of your business and its goals so that we can identify areas where you’re succeeding and others where you’ll benefit most from our input.

How much does an AV consultant cost?

ET Group doesn’t believe in one-size-fits-all consulting—our solutions are unique to each client, so our rates vary depending on your goals, the challenges that stand between you and reaching them, and the cost of the solutions we create together. For a specific idea of the kinds of costs you might incur, contact us and speak with an expert.

What other hybrid solutions does ET Group offer?

ET Group provides versatile solutions for a wide range of needs required for effective hybrid workplaces, including:

• Human-centric space design
• Connections and company culture
• Remote and on-site technical support
• Workshops and training

These services can be purchased separately or as part of a comprehensive approach to hybrid workplace development that we call the HybridX solution.

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