The industry has a structural problem, though not in the way it is typically framed. It is not a shortage of innovation, nor a lack of capable technology, but a growing misalignment between how solutions are designed and how they are actually experienced in practice.
For years, AV, Unified Communications and IT have evolved along parallel tracks, each developing its own ecosystems, commercial models and sense of ownership over the workplace. Technologies were deployed independently, bought through different channels and managed by different teams, and for a time, that’s been how the industry and channel has evolved over time.
What has changed is not the existence of these disciplines, but the environment in which they now operate.
Today, the environments where technology is experienced, whether that is a meeting room, a retail space or a customer-facing platform, no longer respect those boundaries. A meeting room is a connected endpoint within a wider digital infrastructure, supporting collaboration platforms, generating data and increasingly acting as an input layer for AI-driven tools. The best digital signage has evolved into something far closer to a real-time communications platform, integrated with business systems and workplace analytics. UC itself has expanded beyond software, becoming dependent on the performance and consistency of both physical and digital layers working in unison.
Despite this, the industry continues to behave as though these domains remain separate. This disconnect becomes most visible when viewed through the lens of experience rather than technology. Employees and end users do not encounter AV, UC and IT as distinct categories; they encounter a single environment that either enables them to work effectively or introduces friction at precisely the wrong moments. A meeting either connects seamlessly or it does not. A space either supports collaboration or subtly undermines it. Customer communication with a business is either seamless or becomes clunky across disconnected platforms.
When those experiences fall short, the root cause is rarely a single piece of technology. More often, it lies in the relationships between them, in the dependencies that were never fully accounted for, and in the decisions that were made in isolation rather than as part of a cohesive system.
Projects, in this sense, tend to unravel at the edges, where individually successful components begin to introduce friction when combined. This is the hidden cost of operating in silos, creating environments that are harder to scale, harder to support and ultimately less effective than they should be. As complexity increases, control does not scale at the same rate.
At Maverick, this is something we see consistently across markets. The challenge is no longer access to technology. It is alignment.
Personally, coming into AV more recently but having spent many years across other parts of TD SYNNEX, including Advanced Solutions and Datech, that misalignment is quite clear. Each part of the business has traditionally operated within its own domain, with its own expertise and priorities. But from a broader perspective, the customer challenge is the same: how to bring different technologies together into something that works as a complete solution.
That wider view makes it obvious that the industry needs to evolve in a more connected way.
There is a growing need for a more connected approach. One where training reflects the realities of convergence, where partnerships are built across disciplines rather than within them, and where vendors are supported not just in bringing products to market, but in ensuring the channel is ready to deploy them effectively. This is where we see Maverick playing a more active role.
Because the opportunity is no longer in any one category, it sits in how well they are combined. This creates a clear direction of travel for the industry that requires a different way of thinking, a more collaborative approach across the channel, and a stronger connection between vendors, partners and end users.
There is a real opportunity here to move beyond traditional silos and create something more aligned with how workplaces actually function today. The question is not whether convergence will happen, the question is how quickly the industry can organise itself around it.
