"From The Top"
The Importance of Keeping It Simple

by Rashid Skaf, AMX president and CEO

At InfoComm this year, I really enjoyed the opportunity to meet with many of our dealers and distributors to show them the new products we unveiled to the market. It’s also valuable for me to visit with them to learn first-hand what we can do to better support their needs. This vitally important relationship has led to our combined growth and success for almost 25 years and it will most certainly be a cornerstone for continued growth in the next 25 as well.

As we listened to our dealers over the past few years, we began rethinking our business strategies and what’s most important in supporting our dealers and customers. A theme emerged and has become a driving force in everything we do. That theme is quite simply captured in one word - SIMPLIFY. From the way we think, design, manufacture and market, to the way we train, sell, install and program - simplifying our business has become a natural fuel for smart growth.

Customer Satisfaction Starts With Dealer Support
One of my top objectives for simplifying our business was to increase customer satisfaction. The first step in this process is to empower our dealers with better tools so that they have more time to understand what experience the customer is trying to create. I believe it’s important to remember that even if a system is technically installed correctly, if it fails to create the ideal experience for the customer, then the system has in most respects, failed them.

In order to give our dealers more time to learn about their customers' needs, we had to find a way to streamline the installation process. As programming is clearly the most time consuming phase of the install, we started there. I called on our product management and engineering teams to see what could be done to simplify system programming. After extensive research and development, they came to me with VisualArchitect (VA).

When I attended my first VA demonstration, I was blown away. Systems that used to take days to program could now be done in a matter of hours. And I fully expect that as we continue to improve VA, more complex systems will take less time to program.

As we began expanding our product focus into a variety of vertical markets, I also became concerned about the level of support our dealers were receiving to competently and confidently sell in new markets, that they traditionally had not sold in before. Over the years, we've learned that many dealers use customized systems for selling, installing and programming AMX products. These systems are often not easily modified for other markets which often prevents them from expanding into new markets.

So we asked ourselves, “What if there was a system that gave dealers a turn-key solution to sell in any market?”  Soon after, we launched the industry’s first System Design Library (SDL). In addition, each library includes all the materials a dealer needs to find the right solution for the customer, customize the proposal, and even generate the job estimate - all in half the time it takes to do it from scratch. It also gives them a concise frame of reference to explain and illustrate in non-technical terms some of the exciting experiences an AMX system can create for them. We are rolling out SDLs for all of our verticals and I encourage you to come to CEDIA to check out the latest.

Getting Information Should Be Quick and Easy
As we continued to create more and more dealer resources, we wanted to make sure they could be quickly and easily accessed and updated so that the information is always available and never out of date. W e began looking at the AMX Web site to see what else we could do to simplify how we communicate to our customers, partners, world partners, consultants, independent programmers and other important audiences. We also solicited feedback from our dealers, programmers, consultants via surveys, and on May 1st, we launched the completely redesigned, revamped AMX.com. I have to say that the AMX Web Development Team did a fantastic job of re-organizing and redesigning the site, making it much faster and making information easier to find through my favorite feature - our AMX Google search engine. I use it all the time and just like Google Search, it finds just about anything you’re looking for in seconds. Without a doubt, the new Web site is a more effective communication vehicle for AMX.

From our phenomenal group of dealers and distributors to our incredible corporate staff, I am extremely proud of the work the entire AMX team has done to create happier, more satisfied customers. I firmly believe that collectively, we are initiating a trickle-down effect, which can result in an exponential amount of return business for everyone in the future.

As we continue to put more programs and processes in place to further simplify our business, I welcome any and all questions, comments and feedback so that we can continue to improve dealer support and customer satisfaction.

I also encourage everyone to come out to CEDIA next month. I think you’re really going to get excited when you see the new products we’ll be rolling out. And as always, I look forward to meeting our dealers and distributors in person so that we can discuss ways to create better products, better services and a better customer experience.