AV Interview: Graham Evans, Biamp

Brisbane is now an even bigger piece of the Biamp global puzzle. Previously, the Brisbane office primarily housed a team of engineers working on audio products for Biamp. Now, it’s home to the ANZ headquarters. In a few short months, Biamp switched from a traditional distribution approach to go direct to market. The tooling up to achieve that has been rapid and the expectations are high. I started by asking Graham the obvious question… just how big a deal has the changes been?

Graham Evans: It’s significant. There are high expectations of significant growth from head office and Biamp is making a significant investment in the region. So in the last 100 days we’ve hired 20 new people. We moved into a new premises in Brisbane. We’ve now got full local hardware repairs. Chris Ryan is now sitting over the application engineering team for the whole of Asia Pac based in Brisbane. Nicolette Minnie, who I’ve worked with previously, is leading the marketing effort and she’s has a new marketing manager. Matthew Packer, who at one point ran Biamp Asia Pacific out of Hong Kong is now based in Brisbane heading up our sales operations. Matthew is extremely skilled and familiar with everything Biamp. We’ve got DSV as a 3PL partner in Brisbane. They’ve received container upon container of inventory that’s shipping. We’ve got new finance team members, new order fulfilment team members, new logistics team members. And we’ve been really blessed with headquarters support to onboard all those new team members and systems. 

AV: If I’m a Biamp customer or reseller, I’m hoping for a seamless changeover but can I expect ‘more’?

GE: ‘More’? Yes. All our effort is to be more customer-centric. So ‘more’ is dedicated sales leaders in each region. ‘More’ is dedicated training facilities. Our application engineers are off to Denmark to be certified as ‘train the trainers’. We’ve got training kits, test rigs, and a large extra capacity to take care of hardware repairs. Chris Ryan and his leadership over the tech support function in the business is a breath of fresh air with the level of customer-centric mentality going on to resolve issues quickly; to track and close cases as quickly as we can; and ensure everyone’s getting the right outcome. We’ve been doing everything we can to ensure a smooth transition, including air freighting equipment out to meet people’s project deadlines. 

AV: What’s your take-home message to the ANZ market? 

GE: We aim to deliver exceptional customer service. That’s the centrepiece. But personally I’m blown away with the capabilities of the Brisbane office. We’re blessed to have 35 engineers who are instrumental in product design behind Vocia, Parlé microphones, the VBC 2500 video bar, and in amplification. ‘Designed in Australia, built in America.’ I’m really proud of that. I think that’s a key differentiator for Biamp in this region. When we’re at our own tradeshows, we’ll have those engineering resources alongside our sales team in addition to the support from product management and headquarter operations. I think we’re dialling everything up a few notches. We’ve got a huge appetite to win with our partners. I think that will be really demonstrable to our customer community.