Key Takeaways

• The digital signage industry lacks common standards, hindering growth.
• Traditional business models create barriers for smaller companies.
• Collaboration and new approaches can help the industry progress.

Topics

• Technology
• Business Strategy
• Innovation

Transcript

I recently saw a post on LinkedIn by Lee Dido where he said digital signage is dead. He wasn't talking about the technology, he was talking about us as an industry. And a lot of the points that he made resonated with me. I think that he might be being a little bit too pessimistic, but if we were to unpack it, the main problem with digital signage is, why isn't it already bigger? Why do most people outside of our industry not even know what the term means? Often people thought it was to do with signing a PDF online. Now, we see screens everywhere, we know screens work, people want to use screens, and it's certainly much more modern than putting bits of paper on a notice board. But it is fair to say that our industry is still in a cottage state. I think that there are a couple of big reasons for this. Firstly, the industry has not come up with a common set of standards. This means that in every project or with every bit of hardware, we are starting from scratch. If you look at the web industry, where I came from previously, over time, standards were made. Open source projects were put out there, and everyone adopted the same terminology and the same ways of working, and that lifted the whole industry up. And look how that's flown. I think that as a digital signage industry, we do need to get together and collaborate more, even if we are competitive. The second big problem I see is in the business model. The vast majority of digital signage projects are sold through the channel. Now, I do not have a problem with the channel per se, I think there is a lot of value there. But if you're a smaller company with a smaller budget, the likelihood of you having a channel-ready project is unlikely. This means that you have to have a large capex and a big project in order to be taken seriously. And for most people just starting out, they don't have that. There isn't a line item for digital signage in most budgets. I've mentioned that in a previous video. So companies like ScreenC