91ÌÒÉ«

Tyler Kern:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Living Live with 91ÌÒÉ«. I’m your host, Tyler Kern. Thanks so much for joining us for this episode of the show. Today, we’re diving into how Ross solutions solve problems and improve messaging in the corporate market. We have the perfect person joining us today to talk to all of that. His name’s Rob Luther. He is the business development manager for the corporate market at 91ÌÒÉ«. Rob, thanks so much for joining us.

Robert Luther:
Thanks for having me, Tyler.

Tyler Kern:
Absolutely. So Rob, just give us an idea of the markets that 91ÌÒÉ« serves within the corporate world, because I know that that’s kind of a vast marketplace there. So just give us an idea of some of those markets and some of those applications.

Robert Luther:
Yeah, definitely. So as you mentioned, the corporate market is vast within Ross. The markets that we serve in there are the tech sector, finance, insurance, transportation, healthcare and fitness, manufacturing, retail, energy, and hospitality. The easier way to put this is what don’t we cover the corporate market, because anything, any market that needs to communicate internally, communicate externally, train their staff, or really educate or tell a story we serve. Those are the markets that we go after and a little bit of the applications as well.

Tyler Kern:
So you mentioned communication internally, externally, that probably looks a lot different today as we sit here recording this in 2021 than it did maybe February of 2020, right? So just how has COVID-19 and maybe the events of the last year really changed the way we see and interact with corporate spaces and the way that companies are looking to leverage communication technology?

Robert Luther:
Yeah, definitely. So if you look back how COVID changed the entire world, it’s done the exact same thing in the corporate market. You have people working from home, company-wide meetings, shareholder meetings gone. You have industry conferences, any sort of group gathering, gone. And within that, your teams can’t meet. So no matter where you are, you really can’t bring any sort of large group together. And then think about people that were traveling. Nobody’s traveling, everybody’s sitting from home, just like we’re doing this now from our own home offices. It’s drastically different. So within this people thought, okay, I’m going to work from home for awhile, but that’s not the trend we’re seeing. The work from home trend I think, is just beginning. And how can we now adapt to this new trend? So working from home, you’re not being very inclusive. You’re not building a team environment.

Robert Luther:
You’re really not showing the transparency that businesses have been trying to do for years is really from a top-down look. And through video, and through even recordings like this, you’re able to show your CEO or your shareholders and bring people together and really in one-on-one or one to many instances. So if you think about that, but then with people working from home, what are you going to do with your office space? People have been investing in infrastructure for years, and now we have corporations like Ford, Google, PWC, all saying, we’re not going back. We’re going to have a hybrid workforce from here on out. People are going to work from home. So what are you doing to utilize that office space that you’ve already invested in? And re-imagining some of that office space and turning it into studios or large gathering places. And adopting the technology that Ross offers will really bring people together no matter where you are around the world.

Robert Luther:
And it’ll bring you together in a professional manner. Don’t get me wrong. I use Zoom, Teams, Webex every day, especially now over the past year. I think that usage just grown significantly. But to a point, people get sick of seeing nine talking heads on their screen. It’s what everybody’s doing. And you really need to change that and bring in professionals looking professional. And then you can even keep going down the trend of e-learning. E-learning has been a trend in the higher ed space for years, more colleges coming out, doing education online. But what are corporations going to do? Because now we can’t bring people together. And there’s already a lot of industries out there that realize, hey, if I can train people online A, I’m going to save on travel costs.

Robert Luther:
I’m going to reduce my carbon footprint and I can actually reach more people in the same amount of time, if not less time in a total way, saving money. And then really the final two in this space is your web presence and social engagement. So you really needed to differentiate yourself and people come out and you can use texts. You can develop a wonderful website, but people’s attention span for texts is about eight to 10 seconds. That’s eight to 10 seconds. Funny enough, some studies have shown that’s less than a goldfish. Reading texts, humans have less attention span than a goldfish online. Comparing to what people do watching video, which is almost 60 seconds. So produce a professional video communicating to people online. You’re going to get a 60 second attention span instead of eight. That’s really where we go with this and how COVID has drastically changed what we do every single day.

Tyler Kern:
I think you made some fantastic points there. And one of the things that stands out to me is I think a lot of people are going to hear what you say and say, yes, that’s absolutely what we want to do. We want to move in this direction and utilize our spaces, studio spaces, more engaging video content, things along those lines. But we don’t know what the first step to take is. How can an expert like 91ÌÒÉ« really provides some expertise, and some knowledge, and some know-how in this area to really get people moving in the right direction?

Robert Luther:
Yeah. So you talk about environments there first, and Ross does focus in a specific set of environments. Where we look at your live event spaces or your event slash your flex spaces. So a lot of conference rooms, auditoriums, training rooms. There’s a lot of this that people already have that you can now just adapt. But what we can also do is take your office space or take your conference room and turn it into a studio space. And that can be a hard set studio space. Like you see every day watching the news where you have a desk or you have chairs, you’re in an interview setting. Or that can be virtual. Where technology has come, you can create any world you really want to be in and exist in that space. And Ross has the talent and the expertise to either A, provide the technology for you to do so, or create that for you, working together in a partnership setting to really create any world you want to be in.

Robert Luther:
But then the other thing that it comes out is utilizing what you already have because corporations have invested in infrastructure. IT teams have made wide networks of resources for you. And how can you really connect all of those pieces together, whether it be worldwide or campus-wide, or just throughout your facility to utilize all your resources all the time? And that’s where Ross will bring our expertise to give you all the options and let you make the best decision for your company. Because everybody’s different. Everybody has a different appetite for technology. And we have the solutions to go from base level really, I’m going to call it entry level, in to video, all the way up to the most professional settings in the world where Ross works with the most major broadcast largest events worldwide, including events like the Superbowl, the Grammy’s and so on and so forth.

Tyler Kern:
So what are some tools that maybe Ross has available for some of these solutions, both small and large scale? I know that like you mentioned, you do everything from small events, all the way up to the largest events in the world, like the Superbowl. So we probably can’t go through all of them, but what are some that you want to mention that maybe stand out, or it could be particularly useful specifically in these corporate settings?

Robert Luther:
Yeah. So the main hardware pieces and we’re going to call them tools, is our live switches. So switchers are the backbone of everything that really, that Ross does. They’ve been talked about in numerous different tech talks. And it’s where Ross was founded. So what we’re able to is A, broadcast switcher is more of an editor where you’re able to select shots, select sources, layer graphics, really create the professional video broadcasts that people are used to around the world. And what they watch everyday on their TV, or streaming on their web platforms, or anything like that. The other thing is technology to bring remote participants. So a big thing in the entire corporate market is nobody’s traveling right now. We don’t have industry conferences to bring people together where Ross has products, the main one called interstellar that is able to bring in people in real time, very low latency, very high quality into their presentations.

Robert Luther:
So no matter where your shareholders are, where your participant is, we can bring them into your presentation. And then the list kind of goes on because we have the ability to bring in multiple different sources, whether that be a video, PowerPoints, any sort of image real-time data. If you wanted to use information from anywhere, we can bring that into your presentation and display it in a very professional manner. You’re not just looking at a PowerPoint on a screen and no offense, getting bored. Right. With the update, that information real time and make it compelling. And then really the last one is when we start talking about interconnected facilities and sharing resources, Ross has the best routers in the market right now in regards to their capabilities and their space savings. So when Alteryx was released a few years ago, it was revolutionary.

Robert Luther:
You’re able to use multiple IO’s, so your inner connectivity. You’re able to mix audio. You’re able to share resources, it’s all there. And the best thing is then you bring it all back to the control system where people are saying, okay, you’re talking about all this different technology. I don’t know what I’m doing. I can’t control it. I don’t even know what a router is. The nice thing is with the expertise we can create custom control panels. I say, custom, everybody thinks expensive. They are custom. So they’re tailored to your solution, but it’s just like what people are used to in the corporate space. They’re, Extron, Crestron, AMX control systems where we can actually work with them as well to create a really intuitive easy to support system that they can use for whatever they want to do.

Tyler Kern:
And I think one of the big things during this time is simply just how well can you adapt and innovate and adjust to what the new normal is, right? It’s something that we talk about quite a bit. Everyone says, oh, the new normal. I think that one of the big challenges for many different businesses across a number of industries is just, how do you adjust to this? And how do you adapt in a way that works for you? And I think that what you’re describing and the solutions that you’re describing can be a key differentiator for businesses that can drive real value in today’s new normal, in today’s new environment.

Robert Luther:
Yeah. So the value that these solutions bring is unmatched right now. Because when you have people working from home, as we kind of mentioned, you’re trying to be a transparent company. You’re trying to be inclusive. You’re trying to still build a team mentality. And this technology brings people together. It allows you to like I said, bring people in from around the world. And then social engagement, when you’re trying to communicate to people outside of your company, whether that be through a social media platform, through a streaming service, through something we’ve always used YouTube, Vimeo, so on and so forth. It’s how do you cut past all the rest of the noise that’s there? How do you differentiate your message? And that is creating professionalism. It’s making you look the best you possibly can to your audience. And then it’s being compelling and interactive.

Robert Luther:
What people don’t want to do is sit there and preach. I don’t like doing it. I utilize all my presentations and two-way communication all the time. I’m always asking people to ask questions, come back, talk to me about what they want. Because that’s what anybody wants, whether you’re in the fitness market and you’re just trying to create an interactive fitness class because your fitness centers now shut down. You can’t go. You can do that now with the technology we can offer.

Robert Luther:
And then the other portion of it is really within the corporate market. How do we get away from a talking head in a conference room? How do we get away from sitting at a desk and looking at a PowerPoint on our computer screen? That’s what we’re trying to do here. And that’s what we are doing here with companies around the world. Ross operates in over 100 countries around the world. We have customers in all of those countries. And we’re bringing this solution to corporations everywhere. A lot have already bought in. And we have communication going on with a bunch of others that have adopted technology. Or people that are like, what are you doing? I see people are using more video. How can you help us? And we go through that entire process, no matter where you are on the spectrum.

Tyler Kern:
Well, this has been just a fantastic conversation. And I feel like it has really spoken to the current market where things are and how people can take advantage of this changing dynamic in that corporate market. And so, Rob, just to wrap us up today with any final thoughts you have, maybe a conclusion statement. Or anything we haven’t mentioned yet, just in this particular marketplace. Anything else you’d like to leave us with as we wrap up this episode today?

Robert Luther:
The biggest thing that I talk about is being able to tell your story effectively. And that’s how I’ve built my entire career. I’ve been in the AB space. I’ve been in the sports broadcast space and now I’m coming back to Ross, really bringing the technology that I’ve known and used forever to everybody in the corporate market. And I guess my closing to say is, don’t be afraid of the technology. Because it is more intuitive and more user-friendly than you can really imagine it. And until you get your hands on it, or until you sit through and kind of show what Ross can do for you, you won’t know.

Robert Luther:
So ask the questions because eventually your competition is going to adopt this technology and you might as well be the first one to it. So you can differentiate yourself from them. And that’s, hey, maybe it’s attracting the best employee that’s available, or it’s bringing in that new customer, or sharing your knowledge with other people. There are so many different avenues we can take with the technology. You really just got to jump in and see if it works for you. And you know what, for the majority industry right now, we’ve already realized it has.

Tyler Kern:
Absolutely. If people want to take that first step and maybe ask some more questions of you, get some more information, what’s a good way for them to do that? Where can they go?

Robert Luther:
Yeah. So the easiest way, and what if you want to get an in-depth look at what Ross can offer, use our website, rossvideo.com. Within that there’s an application tab. It is the corporate market. Click down. My contact information is on our website. So is a lot of other sales staff. And then for corporations that are out there interested in this, the best thing is Ross values our business partners. So you may have an AB integrator, or an IT integrator, or somebody you’re working with. You may know somebody in the broadcast space that knows Ross, reach out to them. We talk to them all the time. We value our business partners worldwide as they are the ones that are really able to blend those systems together, where we provide all the tools and the know-how, they’re on the streets with us doing our installs.

Robert Luther:
So between those two, feel free to reach out. And at the same time, you can find me on social media. Yeah, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, we’re all there sharing what we know and the things we learn every day. Even as Ross, I learned something new every day in the corporate market and what people are looking for. And I like to share that with the rest of the world.

Tyler Kern:
Fantastic, fantastic steps. So take that first step, get in touch with Rob and the team at 91ÌÒÉ«. Get more information, ask other people about 91ÌÒÉ«, as well as they are just synonymous with fantastic equipment in this industry. And so, Rob, thank you so much for joining me here today on Living Live with 91ÌÒÉ« and sharing a little bit more about the corporate market.

Robert Luther:
Thanks for having me, Tyler.

Tyler Kern:
And everyone, thank you for tuning into this episode of Living Live with 91ÌÒÉ«. If this is the first episode you’ve checked out, we have a ton of other episodes so make sure to go check those out and subscribe, to stay up-to-date with the latest from 91ÌÒÉ«. But until then, for my guest today, Rob Luther. I’ve been your host, Tyler Kern. We’ll talk again soon.