Tech Advisor

Technology for the Interim New Normal

Services Experiencing a Surge in Demand Include Home Networks, Zoomification, Home Entertainment, and Outdoor Lighting

By Henry Clifford

Photo: iStockphoto.com/ArtistGNDphotography

One of my friends shared a whitepaper with me last week that really hit home. He outlined where we’ve been since March 2020 and the beginning of COVID-19 using three phases: Crisis, Interim New Normal, and New Normal. We’ve been working heads-down inside my custom installation business, Livewire, to be proactive and to position us to weather uncertainty in the world. It wasn’t until my buddy outlined his Interim New Normal phase, however, that I realized that we had transitioned out of the Crisis phase, which had us all hunkered down in March, April, and May. I wanted to share what the Interim New Normal (INN) looks like for us and where we see the next six to 24 months shaking out.

Crisis Phase: March to May 2020

In the early months of COVID-19, we were dealing with issues as they arose, focusing heavily on communicating with our employees and customers to let them know what we were doing to address COVID-19.

This meant many emails, phone calls, and allhands meetings aimed at calming fears while assuring everyone we were being proactive. This phase was characterized by living in the moment and tremendous uncertainty. Milestones included securing our Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan and realizing our business benefited from the lockdown because people need their technology infrastructure to be rock solid when working and playing from home.

Interim New Normal: June to ?

We’ve seen customers more willing to have us in their homes while many offices are staying closed with a strong bias toward remote work. This plays well for our business model since most of our clients tend to be high net worth professionals who are working from home and

Photo: iStockphoto.com/Moyo Studio

Photo: iStockphoto.com/gorodenkoff

Photo: iStockphoto.com/cjmckendry

now have children at remote learning at the kitchen table.

This surge in demand has produced a backlog of work now stretching into 2021. While that may be good news, it’s starting to create scenarios where we’re too far out on the schedule and we’re losing business as a result. It’s hard to tell if we’re a $5 million company scaling to $10 million or a $5 million company experiencing a short-term surge that will subside as the economy bottoms, and we’ll have to let people go.

So far, the INN feels like the result of having unusual things for enough days that they’re no longer extraordinary. It’s reminiscent of an old tale I once heard about the fear associated with walking past a bear cave. On Day 1, the fear is intense. You’ve heard tales about the bear and how many men he’s eaten. You tiptoe up to the cave and sneak past. Phew! You made it. Day 2 is much the same and so on until you get to Day 100. Day 101 dawns with you strolling past the cave with a cheerful “Good morning, bear!” We haven’t been eaten by the bear…yet.

While we may be strolling versus sneaking past the bear cave each day, we’re always thinking about what’s next and the uncertainty of it all. To that end, we’ve adopted several “tenets” to align around during the INN. Tenets are used by many companies (including Amazon) as mini belief statements that serve to guide how we think and act. We’ve decided to adopt a few to better inform our thinking and help keep our eyes on the road when the temptation to worry and kvetch is so high:

We will be ubiquitous, meeting our customers where they want to be met, whether it’s in-person or virtually.

rolling a truck.

We will double down on efficiency, always endeavoring to solve issues remotely vs.

We will be empathetic and work with our employees to be flexible around their schedules, particularly when it comes to juggling childcare.

We will keep an eye out for company blind spots, especially market disruptors.

We will invest in new initiatives, but with a bias toward conservatism.

We will not plan anything associated with returning to Normal. Thoughtful time and analysis to conduct business during the INN is the priority.

While our commercial business may be way off, there are INN services that are experiencing a surge in demand:

Home Networks – With 5G and Wi-Fi 6 just launching, we’re watching demand skyrocket to eliminate dead spots and increase speeds across the home. It feels like everyone is about to get new cell phones and devices that will need better home networking gear. We’re offering complimentary virtual network assessments which can be booked on our website.

Zoomification – Whether it’s families wanting to attend church remotely or participating in a weekly video call with grandparents, there aren’t many good solutions out there enabling groups to gather in front of a large display in the family room. The result is four or five people gathered around a laptop or iPad. This gap in the market is slowly being addressed by manufacturers like Barco, Leon, Crestron, and others. We’re experimenting with the best cameras, microphones, and screen sharing technologies to best enable this without turning aesthetically pleasing spaces into a rat’s nest of cabling.

Home Entertainment – Because so many of our clients have been at home more than ever before, we’re getting requests to add backyard movie night setups, larger screens in the family room and it’s great to see dedicated theaters coming back into vogue after a long hiatus.

Outdoor Lighting – Our clients have deferred large expenditures, including luxury travel and concerts. All that cash is just sitting around, and we’re seeing more willingness to greenlight projects like landscape lighting for aesthetics, security, and adding value to the home. Most of the time these projects tend to be existing clients, so the addition of a new stream of profitable revenue is great for our bottom line.

New Normal: To Be Determined

I anticipated the New Normal will show itself gradually. Nothing about the last six months has happened in a way that could have been predicted a year ago, so we’re not going to waste time trying to forecast the New Normal. We’ll be ready when it’s time to transition because we kept our eyes on the road.

As people adopt new habits and norm behaviors like wearing facemasks and sending kids back to school, we’ll continue to evaluate the INN weekly to ensure we won’t be caught flat-footed. x