Remote Monitoring & Management Is Better than In-House IT for AV System Performance: Here’s Why

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Summary: 

Remote Monitoring & Management (RMM) is better for enhancing AV performance than in-house IT because it detects and resolves issues faster, improves uptime rates, and reduces maintenance costs. Most in-house IT departments are handling other tasks and cannot offer the same level of service as remote monitoring, which commonly includes 24/7 coverage with proactive alerts and remote updates. The costs of using these services often pay for themselves by eliminating losses from system downtime or performance issues.

Remote Monitoring & Management Is Better than In-House IT for AV System Performance: Here’s Why

Remote monitoring and management (RMM) is a system of tools IT experts use to monitor, maintain, and manage IT infrastructure from a distance. At ET Group, we use RMM to deliver proactive, client-specific AV support without needing to be on-site.

Read on to learn why this model typically outperforms hiring in-house, how it can help you save time and money, and how to roll it out the right way.

How RMM Improves Uptime and Reduces Maintenance Costs

AV infrastructure that glitches out, drops connections, or just goes completely offline often is annoying for people to use, but it’s also expensive long-term. Downtime involving essential technologies like these can impact your customers and clients, grind productivity to a halt, and even impact your bottom line.  

The more critical AV is to your operations, the more likely you are to experience losses. The associated costs can be very high: between $427 and $9,000 per minute, according to some IT industry studies! 

AV-specific numbers are a bit harder to pin down, but what matters is that the impact has the potential to be comparable. RMM features like these help mitigate the risk:

• Real-Time Detection: Lets your provider continuously monitor the health of your entire ecosystem and spot AV performance issues, like network trouble, before they can affect users.
• Proactive Alerts: Sends your provider real-time alerts when something goes wrong so they can jump into diagnostics and potentially resolve the problem in minutes.
• Automatic and Manual Updates: Makes it possible to update firmware and software, roll out patches, and reconfigure settings to meet changing needs or resolve performance issues remotely.
• Strategic Analysis: Examining trends and data from RMM platforms makes it easier to identify recurring problems so you can build a long-term AV strategy that meets your goals.
• 24/7 Coverage: Helps your provider offer wrap-around support during or outside of traditional business hours so you can cut down on expensive call-outs and on-site interventions.

Ultimately, having both proactive and reactive oversight like this increases uptime rates and reduces AV performance issues. Maintenance costs also stay more predictable because you’re spending the same amount of money every month without needing to pay for expensive call-outs in a crisis.

RMM vs. In-House IT Troubleshooting

It’s easy to understand the value of managed services with RMM for businesses that don’t have their own in-house IT team. But it turns out RMM also delivers better time and cost savings than most in-house troubleshooters. Here’s why:

In-House IT Department Limitations

So many businesses lean on their in-house IT for support when AV equipment and meeting tech stops working or doesn’t perform as it should. The trouble with this approach is that IT departments have multiple limitations that make them unsuitable for the task:

• Split Focus: IT staff are already busy juggling servers, networks, end-user devices, permissions and other important infrastructure. They’re short on time and already focused elsewhere.
• Skill Gaps: AV-specific tools like encoders, control processors, media players, room scheduling systems, acoustics, and large-format displays all fall outside of the scope of general IT. 
• Delays: IT teams often need to make time to physically visit a space before they can start to diagnose a problem, which can introduce delays and extend resolution times. 
• High Staffing Costs: Salaries, benefits, and ongoing training for in-house AV specialists can be substantial and very hard to justify when AV is only a small part of their role.
• Reactive Vs. Proactive: IT teams respond to issues as they happen and don’t have the tools to spot AV performance issues early. Downtime happens more frequently and lasts longer.

It isn’t that IT generalists aren’t valuable; they are. It’s more like the difference between visiting a GP or a specialist when you have a very specific health problem. Both professionals can help, but only one has the extensive training to diagnose and treat the problem.

RMM Advantages

RMM services reduce the burden on already-swamped IT generalists without jeopardizing the stability or performance of your AV in the process. It helps businesses save time and money by: 

• Catching problems IT generalists miss even before downtime happens.
• Automating mundane tasks that eat up time and inflate your IT budget, like room testing or firmware updates.
• Reducing risky patchwork fixes that introduce security gaps or unexpected problems later on.
• Deploying security patches to all devices at once to prevent vulnerabilities and data leaks.
• Letting AV techs access and manage devices remotely, which eliminates travel costs.
• Making it possible to get support for all AV across multiple locations under the same service.
• Catching trends like temperature issues, reboot cycles, or declining signal strength much earlier.

Advantages like these make AV IT workflows more efficient and give you access to data-driven insights that help your business approach AV more strategically now and in the future.

In-House IT Vs. RMM Services in Practice

If you aren’t working with AV infrastructure behind the scenes everyday, it can be difficult to visualize what these differences look like in practice. Comparing the two options side-by-side in a real-life scenario AV experts help resolve every day paints a much clearer picture.

Best Practices for Implementing AV RMM

RMM must be designed and configured around your AV environment and goals if you want it to deliver maximum value. Cheap, cookie-cutter “set it and forget it” solutions won’t deliver the right outcomes and have the potential to actually cause more problems than they ever resolve.

This is how you get AV RMM right:

• Find the Right Provider: Look for a provider that has a proven track record and years of experience in AV. Case studies and customer stories help prove the provider is worth their salt.

• Don’t Skip Discovery: Running a full assessment of your devices, network zones, existing monitoring tools, and pain points helps providers design custom solutions around your needs.

• Define Managed Service Offerings: Nail down what you want your managed service package and/or RMM to include—or exclude. A good provider will work with you to customize their offerings.

• Set Limits for Automation: AI-driven tools and automation add value, but some tasks (like firmware updates) are inherently riskier and should always be deployed with direct oversight.

• Centralize Your Endpoints: Unifying endpoints (individual components) under the same convenient dashboard makes it easy for you and your provider to access the right data faster.

• Train In-House IT:  IT shouldn’t be burdened with AV tasks, but teaching them how to access and use RMM tools can still add value to their day by helping them keep other  infrastructure aligned.

• Set Up Secure Access: Use MFA and role-based permissions to limit access to the RMM, all data within it, and any AV controls. Avoid giving access to people who don’t truly need it.

Your RMM provider will work with you to help you gather the information you need to develop and design a solution that truly works for you instead of against you. If you also need other services, like an AV help desk or Hardware-as-a-Service (HaaS), they may even be able to provide them under the same plan.

Get AV RMM You Can Rely On With ET Group

Remote Monitoring and Management is one of the smartest, most cost-effective ways to manage your AV systems and eliminate performance issues without paying out the nose for maintenance. While it isn’t exactly plug-and-play, the value it stands to provide makes it too worthwhile to overlook.

If you’re ready to improve system reliability, streamline maintenance, and protect your AV investment, ET Group can help. We can design and implement an RMM solution tailored to your business so you can stop constantly putting out fires and get ahead of them instead. To get started, book a discovery call.

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