Every year, new legislation impacts the way integrators do business. Sometimes, these impacts are positive – but sometimes they’re not. NSCA works year-round as your advocate, supporting integrators through government affairs and legislative tracking and reporting. External factors, specifically political and legal, are forces that can have major implications for how you run your business. Read the full article…
Now that midterm elections are over, we have a better idea about what may happen in terms of legislation over the next two years. After attending the alliantgroup’s Leadership, Technology & Policy Summit in early November with a few NSCA members – in good company with more than 100 professionals from across the nation (former Read the full article…
Understanding labor burden, and how it impacts the direct hourly cost of your billable labor (for technicians, engineers, programmers, project managers, etc.), may change your business. When it comes to running a profitable company, labor burden is a crucial concept. It helps managers understand the true costs and resulting profitability of people, projects, and departments. Read the full article…
Who moved your cheese? Do you know? If you’ve been in this space for a while, you’ve noticed that your business model is changing. Margins are moving out of hardware and into services. New competitors are entering the market (and sometimes deciding to stay). A constant dose of fear from pundits about how disruption will Read the full article…
As Dallas-based Master Video Systems (MVS) searched for additional project managers and technicians to work on specific projects, the company was also looking for industry-specific guidance on job descriptions and payment structures so it could be competitive in the market. After contacting NSCA, MVS discovered a few different resources to help determine appropriate and attractive compensation Read the full article…
Before you sign a contract with a prime contractor company (or anyone else, for that matter), read it – again and again! All it takes is one bad contract to take down an integration firm. We recently saw a subcontract agreement shared by a member that was filled with landmines. We know that, due to Read the full article…
Trends like Internet of Things, cloud and IP convergence are combining with technologies like Power over Ethernet and wireless to create a new LAN designed to support smart buildings. Instead of connecting people, we’re now connecting devices. Instead of supporting fixed connections, we’re supporting more wireless connections. And we’re shifting from supporting locally powered devices Read the full article…
The uncertainty of work life in the future raises lots of questions and anxiety. Will we still have blue-collar and white-collar jobs? Will automation create a mechanical workforce augmented by human creativity and contribution? Will remote employees become the norm? No one knows for sure what will motivate workers in 10, 20, or 30 years, Read the full article…
A common complaint we hear from integrators is that they lack information to help with job costing. Nobody seems to have enough data in an easily accessible format to help them make well-informed project decisions. In the article, Job Costing Critical Piece to Preserving Margins, Solutions360 CEO Brad Dempsey discusses how job costing is typically Read the full article…
Earlier this year, we asked systems integrators across the country to participate in our Cost of Doing Business survey. The survey results were then used to create the new Financial Analysis of the Industry for 2018, a benchmarking report that offers a reliable way for you to compare your company’s financial information with other integrators Read the full article…
