Eat your heart out Alex Trebek! D-Tools’ Jason Knott did his best impression of the legendary game show host at the Azione 2024 Spring Conference in Orlando in April as he presented new industry benchmarking data for attendees in a “gamified” format. Knott used an interactive game-show-style format for his presentation by quizzing the audience on various statistics taken directly from D-Tools Cloud that gave a glimpse as to the state of the market.
“Overall, the custom electronics market is healthy, despite the negative reports we all read about the state of the economy,” Knott told the gathering of more than 250 attendees from Azione Unlimited. “Rising inflation and interest rates are behind us. The Fed appears to be successfully orchestrating a soft landing, and is expected to begin lowering rates this summer. With stock market indexes at or near all-time highs, employment low, credit loosening, and inflation falling, consumers are gaining confidence. While the upcoming election cycle is likely the primary cause of caution in the marketplace, integrators and suppliers can expect to strong business in early 2025.”
The session, entitled “B.S. or Reality – What Data Is Revealing about Your Business,” covered several key performance indicator statistics for integration companies, including number of proposals, number of contracts, proposal value, contract value, seasonal effects, margins, value engineering and more.
One of the most intriguing statistics related to the apparent Teflon-effect of motorized shades when it comes to value engineering. According to the data, which was taken in aggregate from D-Tools Cloud’s 2,000 users, an amazing 89% of the proposed price for motorized shades ends up staying in the final signed contract with customers. That is compared to an overall percentage of just 46% of the total proposal value remaining in the final contracts.
“Once a customer decides they want motorized shades, there is very little chance they will decide to eliminate some of the shades or downgrade the shades in the installation agreement,” said Knott, D-Tools Data Architect & Evangelist.
All of the data from the session was drawn from various free downloadable industry reports available to integrators on the D-Tools’ website.