When the pandemic began, many within the AV industry were expecting all projects and work to come to a grinding halt. In response to this, manufacturers decreased their orders, lowering production levels on many products across the industry. In reality, the opposite happened and demand increased, causing integrators and manufacturers to face an uphill battle to return to previous production levels while filling back orders that were now piling up.
This has led to a chip supply shortage that many within the industry are predicting could last until 2024 or even as long as 2025. Endless backorders are now commonplace and the longer you delay on placing an order, the more uncertain a project timeline becomes.
To combat the never-ending backorders and delays, many are dealing with and approaching projects in a variety of ways. Many are learning to live with what they have for now; planning for upgrades when the supply chain issues level out. Others are just accepting that even if they place an order today, whatever ETA you receive could be delayed…..and then delayed again. Many times, manufacturers are providing ETAs and then missing that ETA by 3-4 months or longer, making it difficult to keep any semblance of manageable client expectations afloat.
To manage this, integrators have to be upfront about these delays and rely on consistent communication to ensure clients are aware of what is happening during every step of the process. Many are also researching and training themselves to integrate secondary options that are currently in stock, many of which are products supplied by manufacturers that they have had no previous working relationship with.
In current conversations with clients, it is not about what you want, but what is available right now. This has opened up the market for new manufactures to get into the AV space and see if they can scale to this level of operation. One of our new partners produces AV compatible, high-end switches but had not been considered for data switching opportunities in the past, even though their product is just as good as the competitors that are more typically used for these types of projects. Currently, their competitors in the marketplace are unable to deliver, opening the door for these companies with stock available to stake a stronger place in the marketplace now and in the future.
As we said before, it doesn’t look like the problem is going to resolve itself overnight and it will take a long time for additional factories to be brought online to address the current chip shortage issues we are dealing with. Waiting it out and hoping it will get better is not an option we would recommend. For now, we need to get those orders placed as soon as possible, focus on continuing to discover new available product options and alternatives, and roll with the punches, as they say.