Chile. After the initial impact that the world in general had at the beginning of the pandemic, companies had to generate new strategies that would allow them to continue in the market. One of them is the Chilean Videocorp, which has a presence in several countries in the region.
Alfonso Vergara, general manager of Videocorp, a company that is also part of ConsorcioTec, the first purchasing group for integrators in Latin America, spoke with AVI Latin America about how this experience has been in recent months and the changes implemented to recover the market and move forward.
AVI: How much has Videocorp been affected by the pandemic?
Alfonso Vergara: Chile has been dragging many difficulties since the social outbreak that occurred in October 2019, after this covid was added in March 2020. It affected us at first like all companies, with the uncertainty of what was visualized for the future, but this was a tremendous opportunity to change the way of seeing things and the way of implementing new technological solutions, very focused on the client, to give it as normality and security as possible in times of pandemic.
AVI: In which of the countries where the company has a presence has it been most affected?
Alfonso Vergara: Mainly in Peru, for political health reasons, but we see signs of positive things, which will allow us, we hope, a recovery.
AVI: How much has the company recovered in 2021?
Alfonso Vergara: Quite a lot, we had a historic first semester in sales in Chile, which in the context of the pandemic is really spectacular. That allows us to continue growing at the Latam level and it is a success that we owe to all the areas that make up the company, the awareness that we are part of a whole is what we have increasingly internalized.
AVI: What changes have you implemented to achieve this?
Alfonso Vergara: There are several elements that are combined, internally is the renewal of part of our commercial team; a change that goes beyond the generational, which has to do with a different company culture that Videcoorp has, where we are all important. From our pre-sales department with the survey of the customer's need to the delivery of the service, through our areas of purchasing, logistics, engineering, treasury and the commercial area.
We all work around the client, even from the treatment, from the human that is key. Another essential element was to quickly look for new technological solutions that adapt to the new needs of customers in pandemic. In that sense, Videocorp had a very agile reaction capacity. Finally, and perhaps the most important, is in the innovation that companies should have in 2022 and even 2023 in technology, and that is what we have been working very.
AVI: What are the technology trends that allowed Videocorp to continue operating in the pandemic?
Alfonso Vergara: There are many solutions that allowed us that continuity. We have to highlight the educational segment with more than 2,000 hybrid rooms implemented in less than a year, we are very proud to be able to contribute significantly to a good quality educational continuity. The professional Broadcast and Video space has also had a surprising success, with 37 years of experience in the market, we can say with great joy that we continue to lead this segment.
Finally I would like to highlight our area of remote surveillance and the representation of DJI as another important milestone in pandemic, this line of business in our company is relatively new but with very good results during the last time, drones are still in development and we are growing with it.
AVI: Which of them are here to stay?
Alfonso Vergara: We believe that education solutions for hybrid rooms are here to stay, the possibility of having students in the classroom and others remotely is a great opportunity to increase educational coverage, we are already living it today and we are sure that this will continue in the future. On the other hand in the world of remote surveillance we are also very enthusiastic about the different solutions we offer, in places of critical infrastructure we can already clearly appreciate the economic and occupational safety advantages they provide.
Finally we see in the corporate world a change in the way companies are working, the importance of videoconferencing and changes in offices, capacity control and control of collaborative spaces is here to stay. We are always studying the new technologies that are emerging and it is something that never stops, it is a very important challenge to always be at the forefront and that implies a work that never stops.
