Consumers are beginning to recognise that using a certified CEDIA custom installer has many benefits, including, but certainly not limited to:

Synergy: ensuring that complex and often expensive electronic components work in harmony – no syntax errors or ill-fitting connections, no unexpected shutdowns or embarrassing and often expensive equipment failures during a social gathering or business function.

Follow-up: your CEDIA custom installer is in the industry for the long haul, unlike many salespeople at the larger retailers. Try asking a different salesperson in a department store in 12 months’ time for advice on how to upgrade your system or why a certain component is no longer working as well as it did when you purchased it. Using a custom installer guarantees you one point of contact for all your future enquiries.

Best of the best: your CEDIA custom installer is highly trained, not in sales, but as an electronics and integration expert to make sure you get the best results for your money, whether it be a small home theatre, some outdoor entertainment options or a complex home automation system.

Sharing the experience
For the past 20 years, NZ CEDIA members have been making their way to CEDIA US (and for over 14 years to CEDIA Asia Pacific in Australia) under their own steam in order to gain additional training and inspiration from the experts. Members have bemoaned that the only time they ever really saw each other was in the departure lounge at LAX or at briefly at a CEDIA Expo on the Gold Coast.

But on Friday 23 October, CEDIA members met in Auckland to discuss the direction and plan for CEDIA in New Zealand. This historic meeting was certainly the first time so many competing companies had sat around a table together with a common purpose in mind.

“Custom install has always been strong because NZ is a nation of DIYers,” said CEDIA Steering Committee Member Brendon Reid, from Automation Associates in Auckland.

“Hospitals issue parents of newborns here with a roll of number 8 wire for their first project,” he joked.

Brendon says CEDIA is the perfect organisation for this national pool of raw enthusiasm, taking the rough talent and honing it to a professional level where a thriving business can be sustained.

While membership is currently small compared to other countries, Brendon is confident member numbers will increase dramatically now that the NZ committee has met officially. He adds that north and south islands are strongly represented and that all parties are keen to forge ahead with more regular meetings and information sharing.

He adds among the membership are three large distributors and four large custom install companies, some of whom have been members for 20 years.

Brendon says the NZ high-end custom installation retrofit market has performed well over the past eight months with very little evidence of a global recession.

“Large jobs $150,000-plus never really dropped off for us at Automation Associates, and we are now seeing the middle market surging back to where it was 14 months ago.”

Overseas boost
International experts visited NZ’s members to impart some hard-to-get information and wisdom.

Well-known industry identity and ISF Asia-Pacific’s trainer & calibrator, Aaron Rigg from Avical in Melbourne, drew the biggest-ever course enrolment with the CEDIA AV Theory, Set-up and Calibration course.

Rich Green – Insights to the future of the Custom Industry
Schneider Electric where kind enough to arrange a free lecture by Rich Green to all CEDIA members following their own dealer events. Rich is renowned within the CI industry for his grasp of the changing technologies we deal with and the ramifications of the increasing convergence with IT products that is rapidly shifting the direction of our businesses. This lecture was attended by over twenty CEDIA members who all found Rich’s presentation a valuable insight into where the CI industry will be in five years time.

Level 1 Review and Certification exam
As part of the ongoing CEDIA Education program that keeps members ahead of the game, CEDIA ran the Level 1 Review and Certification exam.

Brendon said having the international experts attend was invaluable. “But having said that – I met an engineer at meeting of prospective CEDIA members last Friday who could easily deliver the TCP/IP courses to the same or higher standard as the ones delivered in Atlanta last month – a little local knowledge goes a long way. The plan here is to keep the momentum going by bringing more courses more regularly.”

A major goal of the NZ committee is to arrange a greater number of training events in order to “raise the bar” within the industry and to create a benchmark standard of excellence that is recognised by other professionals such as building, interior designers and architects.

This, of course, is great news good news for NZ consumers who will benefit greatly from the establishment of a recognised international certification program for the local Custom Installation industry.