Most enterprise AV problems aren’t AV problems. They’re operating model problems.
Across two thousand enterprise deployments since 2019, the same conversation plays out at boardroom tables across Canada. A Workplace Director or IT VP knows their meeting rooms aren’t performing as well as they should. Tickets are up. Executives are frustrated. There’s a vague sense that the organization is spending too much on collaboration technology and getting too little back.
What’s almost always missing is a number. Without one, the problem stays vague. With one, it becomes a budget conversation.
Why these costs stay invisible
Most enterprises track AV as a capital expense: equipment purchased, installed, depreciated. That’s the number the CFO sees. What the CFO doesn’t see is everything else, scattered across departmental budgets that no one reconciles against each other.
Multi-site Canadian enterprises lose an estimated $1M to $3M annually to collaboration technology costs they never track. That figure comes down to four recurring categories:
- IT support absorption — AV tickets quietly absorbed into the help desk budget
- Failed-start productivity loss — executive time lost to meetings that start late
- Vendor management overhead — hours spent coordinating integrators and platforms
- Premature replacement — rooms replaced years before they should be
Each of these compounds differently depending on site count, ticket volume, and how standardized your rooms are. None of them show up on the AV budget line, which is exactly why the total stays invisible until someone runs the math.
Turning this into a budget conversation
A directionally correct number, calculated quickly, is more useful than a precise number calculated never. GAV MGMT built a complete framework for calculating this figure for your own organization, including sourced benchmarks, the underlying math for each category, and a worked example.
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Frequently asked questions
How much do multi-site enterprises typically lose to untracked AV costs?
Estimates for Canadian multi-site enterprises generally fall between $1M and $3M annually, driven by IT support absorption, failed-start productivity loss, vendor management overhead, and premature equipment replacement.
Why don’t these costs show up on the AV budget?
Most are absorbed into other departmental budgets, such as IT support overhead or facilities coordination time, so no single line item captures the full picture.
Where can I calculate this for my own organization?
GAV MGMT’s downloadable brief, What Your Meeting Rooms Actually Cost You, walks through the math and sourced benchmarks for all four categories with a worked example.
Written by Gianfranco, Digital Marketing Manager at GAV MGMT