Harman Professional Solutions thrives amidst higher demand for AV technology

They cater to both entertainment and enterprise markets, working across different sectors.

Whilst the return to the “new normal” is slowly transpiring, the rapid technology shift during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic remains.

The acceleration of digital technologies has allowed lives to go on in homes. With businesses implementing work from home arrangements and students undergoing blended learning, digital technologies have become more essential today.

As such, the need for an immersive and high-quality AV technology is highlighted by the reliance of companies and education institutions on these technologies, which allows them to communicate more effectively.

This is where leading integrated audio-visual and lighting solutions provider Harman Professional Solutions enter. The company caters to both the entertainment and enterprise markets, working across different industry sectors.

Built on their iconic brands such as JBL, AKG, and AMX, Harman Professional Solutions have provided cutting-edge technology solutions that have been on the forefront of innovation. With these technologies becoming more essential with the current environment, the company is more than ready to deliver quality service.

Harman Professional Solutions’ vice president and general manager APAC, Ramesh Jayaraman thinks that the work from home arrangement is here forever as employees are able to perform most of their tasks at home. However, he also noted that people miss interactions in the office environment, and so companies would want to develop a model that offers both and is built around flexibility.

“With our products and solutions, we’re talking about professional grade technology. You’re able to get broadcast or performance level quality and experience in your home, which was previously only available in professional environments,” Ramesh said.

Moreover, he described that education institutions today are centred around connected classrooms and devices, but added that the ability to share content and communicate among the whole class is impossible without the technology they provide.

“With COVID, we’ll also see an acceleration to hybrid classrooms, with some learning done in the classroom and some done remotely through distance learning. The possibilities are exciting with this, but planning the right technology to enable must be done at the outset to get more creativity and ideas,” Ramesh added.

Implementing a ‘customer first approach’

Harman Professional Solutions prides itself on its unique customer first approach, as they have always looked at helping their customers not only by providing products, but through using those products to form a solution and ensuring that solutions enhance user experience.

“We believe in elevating experiences for our customers, and we’re able to do this because we are the only company in the world that offers the products and the expertise to unify audio, video and lighting technologies to create a seamless user experience,” Ramesh said.

The company also added that the right lighting and music contributes to the overall experience of users despite being underappreciated.

“Our products play such an important role in how we experience the world around us and in many instances it’s something we take for granted or don’t think about too often. But the aspect of light, sound and video coordination in enhancing our experiences is very important,” he said.

AV technology now becomes important to facilitate socially-distanced events in the post-pandemic world, especially when it comes to the coordination of these technologies.

Ramesh noted that in online work events, the most common questions being asked include whether they can be heard or seen. This is where their technologies excel, as the technologies normally designed for traditional enterprise work are now applied to socially-distanced work from home applications.

Harman Professional Solutions has also created a wide range of products and services for YouTube musicians and podcasting, starting at an ‘essentials’ podcasting kit right the way up to a high-end kit that can deliver broadcast-level podcasting.

“If you look at the Asia-Pacific region we’ve seen a move to device-oriented platforms and COVID has accelerated that. When I look at the demographics of people aged 35 and below there’s a huge amount of time being spent on these digital channels and platforms, both in terms of creating and consuming content,” he said.

Despite the company’s challenges in supply and demand and coping with work from home, amongst others, Harman Professional Solutions were able to fight back and come out pretty strong.

“We built technology bundles to respond to changing needs and introduced new thinking to how we support our customers,” he said.

With this, they are looking forward to a brighter future as they commit to three phases of expansion in Singapore. Ramesh believes this is the best possible base for the company to cater to the growing markets.