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Wired In: Kontek Conversations is for leaders who want to get technology right. From universities and healthcare systems to corporate enterprises, each episode delivers practical insights to help you navigate complex projects, avoid costly missteps, and design environments that truly connect people.
Through candid conversations with Kontek executives and industry experts, you’ll discover why projects succeed or fail, how to balance innovation with usability, and how bold ideas become reality. Along the way, we share perspectives on the evolution of AV technology, the impact of employee ownership, and the culture of accountability that drives lasting results.
With almost four decades of expertise, Kontek invites you to think bigger, dream bolder, and imagine what’s possible when technology and vision come together.
Marques: If we have to cut somewhere,
people wanna cut AV early, but then
when they get into a building that does
nothing, it's like, "Oh, wait, I can
come into this building, I can come into
this conference room, and I can sit here.
And that's what I can do.
I can have an in-person meeting
in this, beautiful conference
room," but it's for in-room only.
Which, when's the last time
anyone had a in-room only meeting?
Doubling and tripling what it
should've been if you had just taken
care of it at the very beginning.
It's like, no, this is actually what
the real budget was to begin with,
but you're increasing your labor costs
now because you have to redo work.
Brandon Giella: Today we are
talking about why AV gets cut
first, but it costs the most to
add back to a construction project.
And we've pulled some data on what is
happening within the market, and Marcus
has a lot to add to what is happening
within a lot of construction projects,
particularly in the Research Triangle.
And so what we're seeing is a steep
rise in costs over the last year
or so with steel, aluminum, and
a lot of these other materials.
You were mentioning, uh, Marcus,
before we started recording, that like
fiber, copper, a lot of these materials
are just getting really hard to get.
But in addition to that, labor, uh,
the actual electricians and people
like that to actually do this work
is getting, uh, hard to find as well.
And this is for a number of reasons,
whether it's data center build-outs in
the area, the life sciences boom that's
happening in the Research Triangle
right now within North Carolina.
Uh, there's a lot of factors
that are leading to this.
Tariffs, war, that doesn't help.
But, uh, there are some things
that are happening within different
conversations that you're having,
particularly with owners' reps, project
managers, other construction architect
companies, um, that, uh, th-th-that AV
often gets pushed to the back burner
because of some of these rising costs.
But your case, your argument is that
if you do that, it's actually more
expensive down the road because yes,
maybe some equipment can be deferred,
but the actual construction, thinking
about where AV's gonna go, where the,
the wires are gonna go, where, you
know, some of the floor boxes are gonna
go, that's all an AV concern, but we
need to talk about that right up front.
So Marcus, um, tell me a little bit
about your experience with seeing things
that are happening within the market,
whether it's the cost, the labor.
Like give us a sketch of what
you're experiencing right
now, uh, doing your work.
Marques: Yeah, absolutely.
It's, in our area, especially, and
I'll just say in our, you know, I'll
start with our local market and just
thinking about it from an AV perspective.
We have seen over the years
consistent price increases.
And, you know, yes, everyone
is experiencing this from the
grocery store to the gas station.
Well, it's no different when it
comes to your electronics, and that
impacts your projects in many ways.
But it starts even before then
because we see these projects
scaling in overall cost, right?
You know, AV may be ten or fifteen
percent of an overall budget when you're
talking about, you know, a hundred
and fifty million dollar building.
may be, you know, anywhere ten
percent, you know, maybe up to
twenty if you're doing something
really complicated, complex.
What ends up happening, though,
is with all these cost drivers,
are we gonna run into delays?
But then also, what's
happening to your price?
So I budgeted, you know, in twenty
twenty-three for a building that's not
gonna open until twenty twenty-seven.
You know, a lot of folks don't
understand the entire life cycle of
design, you know, s- um, licensing, and
all these things that need to happen
before you can walk into a build.
Permitting and all these
things that have to happen.
that initial budget exercise
is done potentially during, you
know, design development or the
construction documents phase.
It may be another year or two
before you actually go out and
start purchasing your materials.
And we have seen projects where these
costs have gone up anywhere from
fifteen to almost thirty percent.
We're talking about steel, lumber,
you know, all these different areas.
And with what's happening now
with data center booms and, you
know, North Carolina, there's a
lot of industry coming, you know,
to our area, which is great.
Keep coming.
But, uh, you know, with that,
there's also a demand on everything
in the low voltage sector.
So we've seen category cabling.
So when we say category cabling, think
about your internet cables, right?
The things that connect your network.
We have seen those prices
skyrocket over the years.
Fiber, uh, cables skyrocketing, right?
And that continues to increase because
of j- of the demand nationwide, um,
with what's happening, what we see
in data centers and build out to
support AI and all those things.
So when you combine, you know, all of
the, you know, world factors, whether
it be war, whether it be tariffs,
whether it be, you know, federal
policy, mixed into just this demand
being driven by these data centers,
it really does put pressure on these
other industries that rely on all these
components, and we're in that sector.
this has been really ramping up for
us for a while because if you roll the
clock back to even COVID times, hyper
demand, and then everything shut down.
We remember folks having to-- They
couldn't get us USB connectors,
so we had to get new devices.
Manufacturers literally went back
and re-engineered devices to not
use USB connections or to change
chipsets because of some other driver.
Um, and then when you compound that
over years, you know, you start to
see some projects may need to fall
off because these budgets are scaling
so high that we have to find ways
like, "Okay, where are we gonna cut?
Where are we gonna trim?"
So now you have the hyper demand for the,
I'll say, the infrastructure components
and what's required for that building, but
now there's also demand on the brainpower
and the labor to actually make it happen.
You know, in our industry, we-- I don't
wanna call it aging out, you know, but
there's a lot of folks who've been doing
it for a really long time, and there's
not a great pathway that most companies
have for really bringing in and keeping
talent to develop it and push that level.
So you see that part of
it with all this demand.
You know, we compete for the same
resources to some degree when it comes
to pulling cable in the building, right?
We need electrical here and there, so
all of these things start to increase
your overall cost because you have your
hardware cost, and you also have your,
your people cost, and all of it is just
kinda going through the roof right now
Brandon Giella: Sounds
like a perfect storm.
Just of, of bad.
Yeah.
Yeah
Marques: I guess if you're on the other
side, a perfect storm of opportunity,
depending on where you sit in
Brandon Giella: There you go.
There you go.
I like that.
Yeah, on the macro side, on the labor,
you know, I'm, I'm a millennial.
You know, m- the story told to me
growing up was, "Well, you need
to go be a McKinsey consultant or
whatever, so you gotta go to school,
and then you gotta go to grad school.
You sh-- you can't be an electrician."
You know, "Nobody wants to
be a plumber," you know?
That's, that's the trades, you know?
But it's like, actually, you know,
to your point, like actually, they're
getting paid pretty well right now,
and so now there's this resurgence of
actually trade school's really great.
You should go be an electrician.
You should own an HVAC
company, you know, whatever.
So yeah.
Marques: I mean, I have my own soapbox
on how you should never get away from the
trades because they make the country work.
Brandon Giella: Amen
Marques: we are seeing it right now, like
people really-- think they just really
process how demanding it is to build
something like a AI data center or any
giant, infrastructure project, whether
it's AI, whether it's life science, no
matter what it is, this build-out is a
demand on all of these trades, right?
From masonry to concrete pouring
and, you know, electrical, we talk
about HVAC, mechanical plumbing.
There's only so many folks right
now that have those skills to do it
at the highest level that you need.
And so there's just more and more demand,
which drives the pricing up, you know.
So it, it's, it's what we're facing.
It is what it is, but that does have a, a
downstream effect also on, you know, just
number of projects that can be completed.
You know, if we have to cut somewhere,
people wanna cut AV early, but then
when they get into a building that does
nothing, it's like, "Oh, wait, I can
come into this building, I can come into
this conference room, and I can sit here.
And that's what I can do.
I can have an in-person meeting in
this, this, oh, beautiful conference
room," but it's for in-room only.
Which, when's the last time
anyone had a in-room only meeting?
Brandon Giella: And that's because
they're, they're not thinking about
like, you know, the conduits, the
floor boxes, that kind of stuff, w-
you know, when you're thinking about
actually designing the building.
So they didn't bring AV
to come talk about that.
And so now y- now you gotta do what?
A co- more core drilling.
That's something you mentioned before.
You gotta actually drill through concrete
now to get this conduit in place.
Yeah.
Marques: doubling and tripling what it
should've been if you had just taken
care of it at the very beginning.
And so all of that is, it's like,
hey, if you're gonna have to-- I hate
the term value engineering because I
always say, "What do you not wanna do?"
That's, that's really what
we're getting down to.
What do you
not
want to do when this space opens up?
And as you start to take those things
away, I always caution everyone,
sure, don't have the display
on wall, on the wall to start.
Perfectly fine.
You'll do it later.
Have the back box, have the conduit,
have the electrical, get it all
done when you're putting, you
know, your walls up, So you don't
have to come back and open a wall.
Because again, that's, you know, you're
doubling the impact if you wait two to
three years to do the infrastructure,
and the first thing you say is like, "Oh,
wow, that's dramatically over budget."
It's like, no, this is actually what
the real budget was to begin with,
but you're increasing your labor costs
now because you have to redo work.
You have to reopen a wall, you
know, and then, you know, I'm gonna
open it and I'm gonna close it.
And also, today's price is not
yesterday's price, so you know, it may be
expensive today for all of the conduit.
It's not gonna be cheaper tomorrow
Brandon Giella: And it's-- So there's
the macro stories of, you know, the data
centers and some other things that people
are feeling around the country, you know,
in-increases in labor, steel, and so on.
Um, but, uh, you're, you're seeing
in the Triangle particularly, in,
in your region in North Carolina,
you're seeing a, a life sciences boom.
And, and from what I've read some of
these reports saying over ten billion
dollars is being invested just within
the Research Triangle in life sciences.
So some pharma, you know, um,
manufacturing facilities and things
like that, like these large, large
companies are coming-- putting
multi-billion dollar sites.
Is that, is that having an effect
on how you guys are thinking
about, you know, budgeting
capacity constraints in the future?
Marques: Oh, 100%, right?
Because, you know, you also don't know
when the boom is gonna stop, so you
don't wanna, you know, overstaff or
get too far in one area or the other.
So some of it is not being too
excited for the potential opportunity.
Um, and we just see that in our area
as we see more and more companies,
you know, popping up and say, "Yeah,
we're, you know, we're audiovisual
design firms, or we're integrators,
and we can do this work as well."
And, you know, for companies,
it's really important to vet
how long have they been here.
Do they understand the local market?
You know, do they support the type
of building you're putting up?
Um, do they support the kind of spaces?
Because we d- you see it in any
industry, but again, we see it as
well where, you know, maybe there
were 10 local, you know, audiovisual
integrators, now there are 25, right?
Because of that growth that's
happening statewide, you see
more of that competition.
And someone asked me about it
once, and I said, "Really, it's not
really competition because you're
not comparing apples to apples."
You know, a company that's been
in business doing this for 30
years, 25 years, what have you,
they're not the same as someone
that's just came into the market.
And this is a negative term, but we call
them trunk slammers, and everyone in
the industry will understand what that
means, where, you know, they're gonna
sell you whatever you ask them for.
And, you know, they're gonna get it up
and running, and they're out of there.
And then, you know, you need a reputable
company to come back later and say like,
"Oh, wait, this is all done incorrectly.
This is not done to standards."
And it's happened to us, and I know it's
happened to other folks in our area where
you just take over a project and you look
around and you're like, "What happened?"
But you know what caused it?
Cost.
It was, "Hey, I can save you
ten or 20% over whatever that
company was gonna charge."
But there's, there's a price for
experience, and it really shows
up when you come behind some of
these less experienced companies.
Yeah, theyâ¦
get an image on the wall and you
can conference, but now you have
echo when you're conferencing.
You can't quite get all
of the imagery you want.
Your images are flickering.
There's all these things we've seen
and, you know, these are real-life
experiences that we've come behind
other teams to, to fix or repair.
So, I think it's, it's critical because
again, that, that number on that paper
can't be all that you're thinking about.
It's gotta really be
thinking about long term.
You know, can it be supported
from a personnel standpoint?
And also, when we need to add
something, is the infrastructure there?
Because if it's not, what you paid
today to do your project, you need to
be tracking everything you're putting
into this room over the years to see,
okay, where could we have saved cost?
You know, had we done this sooner,
had we done it during construction,
how much would we have saved?
What's the overall impact?
Brandon Giella: It's, this goes back to
what we've talked about on several other
episodes of total cost of ownership.
I mean, you, you do get what you pay
for, but you gotta think about the long
term, you know, the support, um, even
licensing for, uh, some of the software.
That's something I, I wanted
to get your, your take on.
So, you know, um, with a lot of
these, uh, you know, on the tech
s- so we talk a lot about hardware.
We talk a lot about the, the materials
and labor and things like that.
But on the software side, Teams,
Zoom, and several other platforms
that you guys use to do your work,
um, these are going through dramatic
changes as well because of AI.
And so I'm curious for you, are,
are, are you thinking about that
in terms of the budget or, you
know, constraints to be thinking
about over the years on a project?
Because, you know, these tools,
you know, these kind of software
platforms, like they go out of date.
They need security patches.
They need updates.
They need-- Like, there's
a lot that goes into that.
And so do you guys think about, um,
or, or how do you think about like
the, the licensing for the actual like
software and like upgrades you need to
make, how it can run with the hardware?
'Cause like, like you said before, these
are all like mini computers, and they
need, they need to work-- the software
and the hardware need to work together.
So how do you think about that, like
going forward, and are you seeing
changes because of AI or anything else
that's, that's impacting that over time?
Marques: We have seen tremendous
rapid fire changes every single year.
Let me just
say it right
Brandon Giella: Yeah,
Marques: just in, we'll say
popular platforms, right?
People know Microsoft
Teams, they know Zoom.
Those platforms alone put out
a staggering number of updates
to improve the product, right?
You want better performance, you
want better security, you want all
these things, and it is every year.
So we try to keep up with it.
But to your point about licensing,
and this is where we're also talking
about that integration of audiovisual
and IT and being in lockstep.
we'll just say Teams Rooms
because, you know, it's, it's the
last thing I did, so we're gonna
say Microsoft Teams Rooms Sure.
We can buy hardware and connect
it all up and do all these things,
but typically what we always stress
to people, your licensing to your
point, that runs to your IT budget.
Because this is gonna be a yearly license
for, you know, this advanced Teams
room because we need all these other
features to be possible in this space.
Okay, well, is anyone calculating that?
Is anyone, you know, looking at,
okay, well now I need a license
for each one of these rooms in my
Office 365, you know, tenant in my
organization, and that is managed by IT.
I just had a call with someone,
and they had a, a Teams room and,
you know, the touch panel was doing
something a little, little strange.
So I said immediately, "Hey,
reboot, you know, the touch panel."
Well now it wants a password.
I said, "Oh, now you've
gotten out of the AV."
password is managed by
you for that system.
You know, and the, the ins and
outs of how that Teams room is
configured lives in a cloud instance
that now lives within your IT.
So what's the budget you need to
allocate for your licensing, for
your IT management, you know,
for everything going forward?
Same thing with Zoom.
Weâ¦
we think that's important to do.
We always try to separate and help
explain to folks where do we stop and
where does your IT begin, so we can
have a clear delineation of duties and
understanding, you know, even expenses.
You need to, you know, plan for these
licenses every year or every three years
or whatever your, your purchasing cadence
is, um, and where does that budget go.
And, you know, if I wanna go from,
you know, 10 standard conference
rooms to 10 Teams rooms, great.
Sounds awesome.
Have you budgeted for those 10
licenses that you're gonna need to
add into your annual expense now,
in addition to whatever we're,
we're doing with the hardware?
So it, it gets really interesting
and it's, you know, it's almost every
platform, and that's what it becomes a
recurring, you know, revenue stream for
them, but it's really just a, you know,
recurring expense for you to manage that,
and you have to think about it, right?
Because I want a Microsoft
Teams phone with my Teams room.
Sounds awesome.
a license change, right?
To make sure, you know, are you going
up to the super platinum supreme level?
Can I operate at the basic level?
Like what needs to happen so that I
can actually have this Teams phone
in my space that's a Teams room?
So there's, there really is a lot behind
that, and just keeping up with it.
I mean, we go to training.
I've been to them myself just
to understand what's happening.
And, you know, folks just want it to work.
on the back end, you also have to
know like, okay, well how am I- Uh,
how am I provisioning my switch?
You know, you have to learn about
things, Azure gateways, or I
don't think that's the right term.
I forget the specific word for it, but
it's, you know, Microsoft has invested
in all this infrastructure and fiber
in the country to get you a really
fast experience joining and exiting
rooms, and how does this all work?
I'm doing geofencing,
and I actually did this.
I know this from experience.
I, uh, did this in my home lab.
I established geofencing, and I
was blocking certain countries,
and all of a sudden, um, my wife
couldn't connect properly to a
Teams meeting, and I, I looked at
where the traffic was coming from.
Like, whoops, their server hosing the
content is actually in Italy for this
meeting, and so I needed to adjust my
geofencing because people don't know
that, you know, who launches the meeting
dictates, uh, what server you're gonna
be routed through for a Teams meeting.
And so, you know, the content
could come from somewhere else.
So there's all these little gotchas,
but it all has to play together, and
you have to s- have that expense hey,
let's make sure we properly plan this,
lay this all out, what is all the
interconnectivity, and go from there.
So it's, it's pretty
wild what all goes on.
But it's, you know, to their credit,
most of these companies now have
these deployment guides, and I think
it's like a, like a 20 or 30-page
document just talking through the
back end that needs to be handled.
And again, that's an IT task
Brandon Giella: What a time to be alive.
You know, good on some of these
companies that you just push a button
and there's just a zillion things that
happen behind the scenes in seconds.
You know, they go all around the
world, you know, across a huge
number of infrastructure and yeah,
that's just, that's incredible.
So what I'm hearingâ¦
So let me just sum this up.
Uh, what I'm hearing is things are getting
more expensive and more complicated.
But if you bring in a partner early, you
can help mitigate some of these things
over the, the lifetime of the project.
But you have to be thinking about a huge
range of things real early to be making
sure you have an accurate picture of
what your building's gonna look like.
Is that a fair summary?
Marques: 100%.
Brandon Giella: Okay.
Marques: for the, the easiest, most
user-friendly experience requires
the most planning on the back end
Brandon Giella: Love that.
Perfect.
Well, Marcus, thanks so much
for talking us through that.
I know it's, uh, it's the golden age.
You know, you are living through
quite an exciting time for manyâ¦
For good or ill, but, uh, but
it sounds like a, a great time.
So Marcus, thank you, and, uh, we'll
see you next time on the next show.
Marques: Yeah, absolutely