According to Mustafa Rampurawala, SISPL’s Client Experience Centre has a 90% conversion rate for sales prospects that visit it. Hurrairah bin Sohail explores how this is made possible.
Experience centres are all the rage in the AV industry today. But Solutions India Systems Private Limited [SISPL] understood their value much earlier. Mustafa Rampurawala, head of AV projects at SISPL, says: “We started our projects division back in 2006 and within two years of experience in the industry we realised that while everyone was talking about technology, no one was showing what technology was all about. We understood quite quickly that people wanted to touch and feel what they were going to buy and experience what they were going to get.”
Thus began SISPL’s journey to creating a space that would help the integrator engage more effectively with its clients. Rampurawala talks about the early efforts: “Mumbai has a space crunch and creating an experience centre in Mumbai is an experience in itself. Back in 2008, we put a lot of effort into shortlisting a space for our office and our experience centre started as a state-of-the-art boardroom and conference room with the best technologies available on the market at that time. We were the first to introduce the 103-in Panasonic plasma display in India which was a really premium display back in the day.”
He continues: “When we moved in 2012 to what is still our office, we chose a space that was more than 3,000 square feet and we had a reasonably big space to create a more expansive client experience centre which covered almost 2,000 square feet. We sat down as a team and created the concept for the client experience centre from scratch. From the reception to the huddle room, the meeting and collaboration rooms to an upgraded state-of-the-art boardroom, what we followed was the idea of creating an office within an office. So, whenever someone would visit our experience centre, they could see what their office might look like.”
Serving purpose
In its current iteration, SISPL’s Client Experience Centre is designed to showcase the best solutions the integrator has to offer. Each element of the centre serves a purpose, from the first touchpoint to the wide range of spaces that can be experienced. In the reception area there is a 120-in videowall created with 1.5mm direct LED tiles. This doesn’t just serve to beautify the reception area, but it shows how boardrooms, conference rooms or even auditoriums can be uplifted with the right display.
In addition, there is another creative application of LED displays in the reception. Rampurawala details: “While displays are usually installed on the walls, we have the reception table integrated with a 60-in LED display making for personalised reception for your organisation, welcoming the people who visit you or just even showcasing your products.”
Lastly, there is a flat panel videowall in a non-standard configuration in the reception area. Rampurawala explains: “To add some creativity and showcase a different, interesting use case for the LCDs we have added an abstract videowall with four 26-in displays.” A number of rooms have been set up to highlight how SISPL’s expertise can provide the relevant technology to make spaces function at their highest potential.
The largest is a meeting space with a collapsible setup that helps the space transition between smaller spaces and a larger training room setup. Rampurawala explains: “Our experience centre is quite flexible, and we change the theme based on the profile of the visitors. We have meeting rooms, huddle rooms and boardrooms. But we have a collapsible room which we can fit out with projectors and screens to mimic learning spaces. We have Newline interactive whiteboards and wireless microphones which someone from the education sector would be interested in. And if we had a retail end user, then we can change the theme again. Essentially our ‘content’ is always customised for the client and the visitor.”
This meeting space also comes in handy for SISPL’s own initiatives. Rampurawala offers more details: “We actually use the space to conduct our own training. We have offices in eight locations across India and a staff of 150 plus people. We have a lot of OEM trainings that need to be conducted so that our staff can stay up to date and we have the capabilities to remotely connect with our branches across India via video. Interestingly, we had the idea to use a sliding table to help in transforming the space. The table can be slid down and this turns the space into a six-seater meeting room. Together with a foldable wall and the technology we have selected, we can really make the space fit for whatever purpose we need.”
SISPL’s Client Experience Centre also features specific spaces made for the corporate end user and these range from huddle spaces to a state-of-the-art boardroom.
The huddle room features a 32-in touchscreen, a folding table and Crestron Mercury for wired and wireless connection. But these spaces also feature the Sistab, a product that the integrator has created in house. The Sistab is a touch table that has been designed and built by SISPL as a tool for standing collaboration rooms.
Rampurawala says: “We realised that a lot of companies are adopting informal meetings, and these require spaces where they can come in, collaborate freely and leave. Having to connect devices and set up would negate the impromptu nature of these informal meetings. For them the Sistab is perfect because it is ready to go as soon as you walk into the space.”
Another aspect SISPL highlights with its Client Experience Centre is room booking. Rampurawala says: “We have a complete room scheduling system which allows you to block the meeting room for your designated time ensuring that time isn’t wasted, and the user is not left disappointed. Our Client Experience Centre highlights how the same room booking system can help corporate end users streamline their own meeting systems.”
Sparking joy
A clear thread evident across SISPL’s Client Experience Centre is an understanding of the trends shaping the world of technology. The state-of-the-art boardroom for example features Amazon Echo integrated with the AV systems deployed and it provides voice control. Rampurawala details: “As soon as someone comes in instead of hunting for the lights, they can just use their words and turn the lights on or start their presentation or videoconferencing call.”
Another technology highlight is a wallpaper LG OLED videowall. Rampurawala says: “This is a one-of-a-kind solution that we have imported from Korea and installed in our client experience centre. It is a showstopper. OLED is the display technology with the highest contrast ratio, the blacks are actual blacks, and the colour reproduction is unparalleled.”
He continues: “The wallpaper OLED serves as the anchor for our experience centre and it is one of the pillars that pulls people in. We understand that not everyone has a use case for OLED videowalls. But our experience centre is not just designed as a sales tool. We want to be able to show our clients our interest in technology and we want them to be curious and have an open mind. If we didn’t showcase the LG OLED wallpaper, then this would not be possible.”
Another modern trend that SISPL’s Client Experience Centre addresses is AV over IP.
Rampurawala says: “We have incorporated AV over IP into our experience centre. It is one of the technologies everyone is talking about right now, video over IP or the network. The words describing it may change but the concept and the technology underlying it remains the same. An underlying statement that drives SISPL is that ‘technology simplifies life, and we are here to simplify technology’. We need to educate the customers because an educated customer is more empowered to make the correct decision and make the correct investment in technology. And that is why our experience centre looks to bring across the fundamentals of AV over IP and focus on the actual benefit it can provide rather than trying to push 1Gb or 10Gb or one manufacturer’s proprietary technology.”
The SISPL Client Experience Centre also boasts a unique take on projection mapping. Rampurawala says: “We have a very different concept of projection mapping. We have our company profile being shown on our logo which is in raised lettering on the wall. We wanted to show the creativity that is possible with just 3,500 lumens projectors. The energy put in by the SISPL team, the way we have used the software at our disposal and the creative work done by our team is amazing.”
Rampurawala gives details regarding how the technology was selected for the different spaces: “We have a wide range of experience in integration and we use the best product for the job. Of course we have strategic partnerships with OEMs. So, we had to be very prudent in our choices especially seeing that they were for our own office and space. We went with Crestron for control because that is a system we have been using since we started our integration business. And Crestron has been very proactive with support and we have our own programmers that have Crestron certifications and are experienced with the platform, so we wanted to leverage our proficiency with the ecosystem for control. That being said, we’re using Extron for the core video switching in our experience centre because in my opinion it is one of the most powerful options available on the market at present. Similarly, we have chosen Clear-One as the ceiling microphone because the product is something we have used, and we know very well.”
Return on investment
Setting aside two-thirds of your office for a client experience centre is a bold move. Couple that with the procurement of technology systems for the spaces and you are looking at a significant investment. However, Rampurawala believes that the investment has paid off for SISPL. He details: “Our conversion rate for prospects that visit our client experience centre is 90%. There are so many examples where clients and companies have visited and in that particular moment finally understood the positive impact that technology can make and have been impressed by it. Take command and control solutions, we had a project with ICICI, one of the biggest banks in India, and I can say that we won that project because they were able to come to our Client Experience Centre and see the NEC Hiperwall solution that we proposed in action.”
Rampurawala concludes: “The experience centre is not just a sales tool. It is like our own R&D centre. We test and try new technologies in these spaces before we recommend or install them for our customers, we never learn at our customer’s cost. We don’t have the liberty to extend the current space but there are always a lot of changes and there is a constant stream of new products and new technology that we are displaying.
“As far as having other experience centres around India, this is something that we are definitely considering and maybe we can embark on this journey once the disruption caused by Covid-19 settles down. We are looking at places in the South, Bangalore and Hyderabad. Bangalore and Hyderabad in particular are interesting for us because we have reasonably big offices in the cities, and it would be a natural progression for our activities there.”