Rapallo means Business
We know our blog readers like having a peek at other people’s set-ups. So far, we have tried to offer a variety of lay-outs and budgets, but the bottom-line has been that it was AV applications in people’s private homes. But that’s not where Rapallo installations stop. We have been dealing with a wide variety of AV installations in businesses too. From shop outfits, to B&B’s, to restaurants.
Earlier this year, we completed a large commercial AV installation at FlexiGroup.
Flexigroup is a leading consumer and commercial financial services provider built on 40 years of trusted experience and part of FlexiGroup New Zealand. Flexigroup aims to do things differently to deliver smart, customer-centric financial solutions.
With a diversified product offering such as interest-free credit, credit cards, long-term finance, leasing, and vendor finance programs – FlexiGroup holds an extensive network of merchants, vendors and retail partners throughout New Zealand.
So where does Rapallo come into the story?
Last year FlexiGroup NZ made the decision to merge their two office locations in Auckland (Highbrook and Albert Street) into one central head office in Newmarket on Carlton Gore Road.
New Offices
It was the guys from Rapallo who were engaged with the job of moving and installing audio-visual equipment for the new meeting rooms as part of the new office fit-out.
The FlexiGroup HQ office is home to 200 plus employees and spans three levels with a range of meeting rooms and collaborations areas. Rapallo were tasked with delivering a cost effective yet strong performing audio-visual solution to meet the diverse needs of the various departments within the building.
So what did we do for the good people from FlexiGroup NZ?
The Rapallo installation team, installed more than 15 TVs, all of which are connected to small PCs behind the TVs. In addition, the majority of the TVs are also connected to Barco Clickshare units. Clickshare is a simple solution that allows any laptop user to plug a dongle into a USB port and in a few clicks, without the need for software, the laptop user can “cast” or “stream” their laptop video and audio content onto the TV.
The solution included a number of Logitech Harmony Elite remote controls which are affordable and powerful in terms of programming. Given these are Infrared based, they don’t allow for the same level of control as AMX, Crestron or Control 4 environments, but are a powerful and reliable solution with the added advantage of cost efficiency.
Flexi-Hub
FlexiGroup’s new office space includes an area called the “Flexi Hub” where staff can have lunch, relax, have meetings and catch up on news or sport on the TV.
To kit this space out we installed café-style wall hung speakers (100V system, meaning more speakers can be added later on without having to worry about 8Ohm impedance limitations that traditional hifi amplifiers have). FlexiGroup needed a wireless microphone system for internal meetings and speeches. Due to cabling constraints we used a combination of wireless 2.4 Ghz AV transmitters to share audio from the Sky TV and the microphone units with other areas.
The Board Room
One of the most important rooms in a corporate office is often the board room and in this case it was also the most complex room of the building to deliver an audio-visual solution. Two 65” Panasonic TVs were installed to allow for a legacy videoconference system, PC connectivity, Clickshare and Apple TV.
We installed Definitive Technology speakers driven by a Yamaha RXV1083. General consensus is that the sound is absolutely amazing (but we knew that already). This is quite an achievement given the fact that the architectural design of the board room included exposed ceilings with very industrial finish (and basically an acoustic nightmare!).
The FlexiGroup team moved in to their new office in November 2017 and have settled in well. In one collaboration area we installed two 43” Philips touch TVs, which is proving to be very popular with the collaboration area used frequently throughout the day.
We were thrilled to work on this project with the team at FlexiGroup and what counts for us at Rapallo is that that the customer is happy. It always starts and ends there.
So…
So spread the word….Rapallo is serious about all our customers, be it residential or commercial. We strive for customer satisfaction by offering solutions that are designed in collaboration with the customer.
Our customer’s feedback was very positive, so we would like to extend the invitation to all of you to think of us to as your workplace AV partner. We want to reward your referral that come to fruition with a nice gift, because word of mouth is still the best marketing!