This is the year for resellers to break the corporate market with interactive technologies, such as whiteboards and voting systems, audiovisual (AV) distributor Steljes has claimed.
Findings from a survey of attendees at the World of Learning Conference and Exhibition held in November have revealed corporate trainers recognise that interactive whiteboards (IWBs) could make a marked difference to the quality of their training classes.
The survey, conducted by Steljes, found that 83 per cent of corporate trainers want interactive technologies in their training rooms, but are prevented from doing so by budgetary restraints.
More than 48 per cent of those surveyed said they also wanted new technologies, including digital pens and interactive walls.
“From the channel’s perspective, it is great to see such a high percentage of corporates are aware of the technology, so resellers do not need to educate them on what IWBs are,” Gary Dixon, business development manager at Steljes, told CRN.
“However, these trainers are clearly restrained by budgets so resellers need to get across the return on investment (RoI) that IWBs can provide.”
Colin Messenger, senior consultant at analyst Decision Tree Consulting, said: “The way a teacher works is very similar to how a trainer works so there is no reason why IWBs should not take off in the corporate world in the same way they have in the education sector. There is a huge lack of awareness among corporates about IWBs, so it is interesting to hear that so many corporate trainers want the technology.”
AV VAR Independent Products said the corporate market already represents about 40 per cent of the firm’s business. Jack McGuigan, director of Independen t Products, told CRN: “Corporate trainers are often clued up about these products, but the hardest part is convincing the person who writes the cheques that it is a worthwhile investment. Corporates definitely need more convincing than the education sector.”
Lee Bevan, managing director of VAR Leapfrog Computers, said: “We set our sights on the corporate market a few years ago when everyone else was targeting education and in the past 18 months it has started to pay dividends. It takes a long time to get your foot in the door with blue-chip companies, but we now do business with firms such as Honda, BP and Siemens in Germany.
“You basically have to keep driving the message through to corporates before they will bite.”
Dixon added: “The channel could have a great 2008 by approaching trainers and training managers, provided they can get the message across about RoI.”
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