Even after Red Thread overcame early skepticism from the AD community, there was still that “they’re a furniture company” scrutiny from fellow integrators, Marshall says.
“We got our nose bloodied up again, but we stayed with it again, because we can see the connection of space and technology, and we believe it’s what’s right for the customer. We stuck it out. We became somewhat of a change agent, I think, in this market.”
Fighting Back with Holistic Approach
Walk through Red Thread’s offices in Boston or Hartford, Conn., and you see employees practicing what the firm preaches to its clients and the AD community.
There are wide-open, sound masking-controlled workspaces. There are “me spaces” (desk areas) and “we spaces” (connected collaboration areas and video-conferencing equipped huddle rooms with easy-to-use touchpanels). What few offices you see have modular, movable and removable walls. If it’s pointed out to you, you’ll notice that the floors are raised for easy cabling access.
All of this allows Red Thread to host prospective clients at their offices, explain why they enjoy this workplace flexibility and invite them to envision whether or not their organizations might also benefit from it.
It’s hard to find a company that can’t relate to the flexibility that Red Thread demonstrates, Marshall says. “If you look at our economy and what’s going on in the last couple of years, I would challenge any organization that [claims] they haven’t gone through significant changes whether it’s right-sizing, downsizing or whatever. If you look at the influx of the new generation of people that are coming into the workforce, they work and act differently than the traditional baby boomers do. So people really have to rethink their space.”
It’s a message that lands squarely with the AD community, so Red Thread makes a point to deliver it. Just after 5 p.m. it’s not unusual to see a bartender emerge in the open-design kitchens strategically located near the entrance of Red Thread’s Boston and Hartford offices, or to see caterers spread hors d’oeuvres in the adjacent collaboration spaces.
The integration firm likes to host architects and designers for forums on office trends. A recent Hartford event featured a panel of Red Thread clients discussing their experiences with converting to “flexible infrastructure” in their offices as a couple dozen architects and designers listened, took notes and sipped wine.
It’s an unconventional approach for an integration firm, but Red Thread is an unconventional integrator. The integration industry is changing and some firms struggle with that, but for Red Thread change is like currency. Its entire business model is based on change — selling, designing and implementing solutions for customers whose businesses are changing.
“One of the things we’ve found is that organizations don’t change because their infrastructure doesn’t allow them to change,” Marshall says. “So if you can build out a space today using raised access floor, modular wiring and cabling, movable and demountable walls, new technologies in sound masking, more advanced audio visual products, this will allow companies to build out space that’s much more flexible so as their business changes they have the ability to change their space to keep up with their business.”
He says this while in a small huddle room amid a flexibly structured office with countless collaboration stations that Red Thread employees actually use. It’s a living, breathing reflection of change. It’s an exhibition of how an integration firm is evolving in lock step with its clients’ emerging demands.
Those clients don’t differentiate “office furniture issues” from “technology challenges.” They just want them solved, and Red Thread’s distinct advantage is that it can talk to them about how their system solutions address all of the above.
“We have a unique approach,” Mitton says. Traditional integrators “tend to look at the technology that’s going into the space as just an add-on.” The Red Thread approach, he says, is “integration of technology to complement, and be part of the overall solution — a holistic approach to it.”
The naysayers aren’t wrong. Red Thread is a furniture company, but it’s a unique one whose audio-video integration business grew 20 percent last year and doesn’t appear to be slowing down.
