This  SCN magazine interview may be lengthy – but worth the read!

IVCi made its name as a provider of video conferencing solutions in the mid-1990s, when the demand for the technology was beginning to grow. After adding an audio visual team and a Managed Conferencing Services department, IVCi has become one of the leading integrators in the country, reaching sales of over ($74) million last year.

IVCi achieved this level of success by taking the unique step of incorporating audio visual services to its offerings, because it did not want to rely on outsourcing. IVCi is now an expert in designing and implementing top-of-the-line conference rooms that can be equipped to run easy to use and reliable video conferences.

Tim Hennen, senior vice president of audio visual integration for IVCi explained, “We sold cart-based systems to our customers for a while, and eventually saw that companies were putting the systems into their conference rooms. We had been partnering with other AV integrators at first – putting the system in and allowing the other companies to finish the job – but we wanted to ensure that our customers received excellent quality and customer service. Therefore, we decided to take the process in-house. Our goal was to not only put a video component in the room, but to manage the whole AV integration of the space. We have done this successfully and are now penetrating a much larger piece of the market.”

By early 2000, video conferencing had become more popular due to its lower cost and improved reliability. Companies of all sizes were turning to video to communicate more efficiently, improve productivity, and cut down on business travel. “If you look at businesses today, there are numerous national and international locations. There are many remote offices, and these companies need our services to ensure effective face-to-face collaboration,” said Hennen.

IVCi delivers a standardized user experience at each of its client’s locations. Hennen explained, “With clients, one of the biggest problems had been that each regional office would make a separate decision about their technology purchase, so each office would have a different user experience. But now companies are getting smarter and they’re buying from a central location, and rolling out a template design or standard room configuration so that all the rooms will be the same no matter what office you’re in. So for us, the fact that we can do national roll outs makes us more desirable to work with because we can take that room design and install it nationally as well as internationally, while ensuring the same high quality experience in each room.”

IVCi also stands out from its competitors because of its many layers of customer service. Hennen expanded, “We have a full help desk, remote bridge services, and three levels of support assistance. We also have a preventive service where we’ll put people into our clients’ facilities, or manage it remotely so they can have a conference call they schedule with us. Then we’ll launch the call and verify it was implemented successfully. We’ve taken clients that have a 75 percent failure rate and brought them to over a 90 percent success rate.” 

IVCi state-of-the-art facility accommodates its plans for continued growth. Hennen stated, “In the future we see sustained growth. Our vision is to be a 100 million dollar company, so to do this we will continue to meet the growing demand for our fully integrated solutions, and provide support for those solutions.”