After 50 years in the same building, Farmers Mutual Rain & Hail Insurance Co. took advantage of its plans for a new building last year to incorporate the latest in audiovisual and training technology.

Last month, the company got a chance to fully test that equipment when it hosted a weeklong training session for its adjusters from across the country at its new West Des Moines headquarters.

“We devoted a lot of space to a high-tech training area which includes power screens and fully integrated audiovisual technology in a room that can be divided into two or used as one,” said Steve Fischer, the company’s vice president for human resources. With room for 48 people seated at tables, the training area saves the company from having to book conference space at a hotel, and allows for on-site entertaining at its headquarters, he said.

Such integrated audiovisual systems are a specialty of AVI Systems, a division of Twin Cities-based Audiovisual Inc., which has also designed and installed such large-scale projects as the sound system at the Iowa Events Center and the projection systems at the Science Center of Iowa. Many smaller organizations, however, are finding they can now afford technology that was once found in only the most elaborately equipped corporate boardrooms.

Wide-screen videoconferencing equipment, interactive whiteboards, video projection and integrated audio conferencing are among the technologies that are becoming more prevalent as the costs continue to come down, said Steve Riley, AVI’s regional vice president at the company’s Des Moines regional office in Urbandale.

A video projection system, for instance, has become almost a “must-have” item in conference rooms, Riley said.

“Those costs have come down significantly, and when you compare today to 1990, people are putting in a lot more of these conference rooms because the cost has become a lot more reasonable.” It’s possible to install a quality, standard presentation system, for instance, for less than $10,000, he said. “Videoconferencing is also becoming more prevalent, because it, too, has become very affordable. Something in 1992 that cost $50,000 now costs $5,000.”

As part of its audiovisual package, Farmers Mutual also equipped its executive boardroom with a rear-screen projection system, along with power screens and projection systems in eight conference rooms, two of which have interactive whiteboards.

“We knew it was going to be a long-term investment,” Fischer said, “so we wanted to take advantage of the technology that’s out there, and make it better for employees and for the presenters as well.”

In the future, the company hopes to equip its boardroom for videoconferencing as well, he said. “As technology changes, we’ll take a look at the investment return of adopting those new technologies.”

  AVI, an employee-owned company, collectively generated more than $70 million in sales last year. As one of the company’s 10 regional offices, the Urbandale office operates as an independent business unit, but shares purchasing and administrative functions with the other offices.

Though it has completed projects for businesses with as few as five employees, one of AVI’s larger upcoming projects is a design-build of the audiovisual systems for the Wells Fargo Home and Consumer Finance Group’s Jordan Creek campus.

A large portion of AVI’s business in Iowa has come from its contract with the state as a vendor for the Iowa Communications Network. Since 1993, the company has equipped more than 500 ICN classrooms across Iowa.

“In the past seven to eight years, we have not only done distance learning, but we have also done a lot with the presentation side of the business: video projection, sound reinforcement, videoconferencing,” Riley said.

The company’s size brings several advantages.

“We have the flexibility of being able to bring in additional help when needed,” he said. “With 10 regional offices throughout the Midwest, economic conditions are little different in each market segment, so one office may be busy when another one isn’t. So it really works efficiently for being able to smooth out our labor pool.

“And having that many offices, we purchase a lot of equipment. Last year alone, we purchased over $50 million in equipment. By doing that, we have our manufacturers’ attention, and it makes our pricing structure very competitive, as well as finding out about some of the new and cutting-edge products that are coming out.”

One trend is that companies are increasingly installing interactive whiteboards made by Smart Technology Inc., which are now part of at least half of the projects AVI does.

“What we noticed when they first came out was that people were really reluctant to learn how to use them,” Riley said. “So we saw the manufacturers really had a gap to close between creating these technologically advanced projects and getting people to use them.”

Another trend is that more businesses are interested in installing wide-aspect screens in their boardrooms.

“It gives them more ‘real estate’ to display information,” Riley said. “It also gives them more real estate to lay out videoconference screens. It makes a much more fluent, productive environment by having a wider-aspect screen. We’re not seeing people using more high-definition content; that has not taken off. But the wide displays, we’re finding a lot of uses for them other than HDTV.”