Carousel + Amazon Signage share Digital Signage Insights

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SUMMARY

In this episode of the Digital Signage Today podcast, host Judy Motel interviews Chris Brama and John Caswell from Carousel and Alex Gu from Amazon Signage to discuss optimizing digital signage hardware strategies. A real-world case study is presented involving an auto dealership that successfully upgraded 150 displays on schedule and within budget by pairing Carousel CMS with the Amazon Signage Stick, avoiding a costly 'rip and replace' of existing screens. The panel also explores how Amazon developed the Signage Stick by first solving its own internal communication needs before bringing the hardened hardware to the external market.

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More on Carousel + Amazon Signage

TRANSCRIPT

Hello, and welcome to the Digital Signage Today podcast. I'm Judy Motel, editor of digital signage today. Very excited about our topic and our guest. So today's podcast is sponsored by Carousel, a thirty year old digital signage platform for any enterprise from corporate to government to educational agency. Our topic is right tool, right place, a smarter hardware strategy for modern signage. So we're gonna be examining a real world case study of a customer that paired Carousel CMS with the Amazon signage stick to upgrade over a hundred and fifty displays on schedule and within budget, and that's without replacing a single screen.

And then we're also going to talk about fixing enterprise bottlenecks and maintaining project velocity while taking a more flexible approach to hardware.

Our guests from Carousel are Chris Brahma, Senior Vice President, Partnerships and Channel and John Caswell, Director of Sales. From Amazon Signage Stick, we have Alex Gu, Executive Business Development Manager. So thanks, guys, for being here.

Thanks for having We'll kick off.

I'm gonna kick off asking Chris a question. When teams start planning a digital signage rollout, everyone wants to focus on the end result. But behind the scenes, issues can paralyze a project.

What are some of the specific hardware bottlenecks and market challenges that IT teams are running into today?

That's a great question. And I think just starting from the very beginning, IT teams, right? When we talk about digital signage, generally speaking, they're being handed a system that they're either having to scope in that is net new to their environment, or they're inheriting a system, and they need to create a standard, on top of that legacy system. So in either case, they're being tasked with figuring out how to make everything work in their current environment, and work towards that future state, which is whatever their vision is long term for that signage system, in their facilities.

So I think that is really important to think about this because in today's world, there's a lot of constraints and challenges and headwinds tied to logistics that make actually solving for that, in either scenario more challenging than it ever was previously. So what we like to do is to really have IT teams think about that bridge between, like, where they are today and ensuring that they're deploying the right options as far as hardware goes to help them get from that current state to that future state.

So what does the IT leader need to know, whether they're upgrading or replacing or going for the first time down the digital signage road? What questions should they be asking? What kind of information do they need to get from the providers and the experts that are out there?

Well, that's a great question because sometimes people are in a meeting and they are now designated the signage expert for their organization and they need to pick it up in a hurry.

So I sometimes will ask them, like, is this your specialty, or did you draw a short straw in a meeting last week? Can be fifty fifty. So a lot of the focus usually is is is twofold. One is, obviously, what do you have now?

Are there legacy systems that are being inherited that IT is going to be asked to manage to life cycle and to organize, you know, in conjunction to the current, you know, IT infrastructure in addition to what are the communications goals. A lot of times people don't have a signage goal, but they definitely have an interior an internal communication goals for their their multinational organization, for their thirteen universities spread out throughout our entire state system. And so the IT really has to focus on two things. The rubber meets the road hardware, and then what is the information that's being communicated?

What are the strategic goals from the marketing team, from the organization's sort of DNA, and what is it that they're trying to accomplish? Because that would sort of that would end up driving what is the right solution for what we are trying to do? And that could very easily be a combination of Carousel and Amazon signage sticks.

Yeah. I can add on to that a little bit too because I think what John said around, needing to understand the end state is is the right way to probably look at it is, needing to understand the end state of what the digital signage infrastructure wants to achieve is so important. And from our perspective as a hardware vendor in this relationship, I think software is probably the most important part of the overall, architecture. Right?

Choosing the right software partner, making sure it's robust enough to meet all of your communication needs and everything like that. So I think a focus for the IT leader there should be around picking the right software partner. And from a hardware perspective, I think they don't need to over spec it. We constantly see in the market there where the use case is relatively simplistic, but they're over, paying for hardware that does not over exceeds the need state that they're actually trying to solve for.

And that's actually exactly why Amazon designed the signage stick in the first places. We found that majority of our digital signage use cases are relatively simplistic. The complexity lies on the software side of it, not necessarily the hardware side of it. So from an Amazon signage standpoint, that's exactly what we're trying to serve is we can solve for the simplistic majority digital signage use cases.

There are even think places within Amazon that the signage stick is not being used for where, for example, we're looking for AI solutions on the hardware device, on the edge, etcetera. And the Sinus Stick won't serve that piece of it. But those are those use cases are far and few in between. Right?

So I think that's the other piece of it is when you start thinking about the end state of what you're, as an IT owner, what your users are trying to get to, really understanding is it is this part complex enough to justify this hardware investment.

All right. So John, it sounds like it's a little bit of a tough market right now, even with those hardware delays and supply chain hurdles that we're all reading about and hearing about. When there are practical solutions available, how can IT teams navigate these challenges so they aren't forced into that expensive rip and replace scenario?

Sure. And you're what you're really talking about too is a sort of a combination of issues because organizations are already looking to outfit for their digital signage to meet their digital science communications goals. And then you have all these other sort of market turbulence issues with availability of hardware, availability of the different components that could make up your overall digital signage deployment. So one of the areas that can be very helpful, and this is not unique to Carousel, but something that Carousel does very well is to sit on top of existing or legacy systems.

So large companies, universities, with my experience, have have a lot of, oftentimes have legacy systems. Right? They have silos that have purchased different types of equipment over time. And then as they've built mass, the organization says, hey. We really want to standardize our digital science communications and what we're delivering. But we have a product that was bought by the business school over here, something that was purchased with a grant over here, utilizing something like Carousel to provide command and control over these legacy disparate systems really allow some breathing room for organizations to say, okay. Now we've centralized everything with the command and control.

What should our hardware options be? What do we want to focus on? Is it system on a chip based upon our needs, or is it that we want to complement existing hardware that may be out of date with new media players, say in this case with Amazon Science Stick, to life cycle those displays for a much longer period of time. So what's very helpful is that using a a dedicated digital signage CMS buys an organization time as they organize their legacy systems and then coordinate on moving forward for our delivery of emergency notifications or other communications goals, what should we be using moving forward?

John, that zero friction approach makes complete sense for the displays that are already up on the wall. But, obviously, not every screen lasts forever. Right. And sometimes you do have to bring in new hardware.

So what should the IT leader evaluate when it comes to, like, what to stick with

And versus what maybe they should bring in?

Also a fair question. It kind of there in the toad. Right? What should they be focusing on? And oftentimes, our coaching and in our environment, we focus on what is the organization trying to achieve? You know, what are what is the information that's going to be communicated on your displays? Because oftentimes that will determine the types of hardware you're going to utilize moving forward.

So organizations can can kinda take a look and see, well, alright. Given our current deployment and given our our cost constraints, how can we map to what it is oftentimes the partner organization, say strategic communications and marketing, the groups that IT are working with to empower with digital signage.

Firstly, focusing on what they're trying to achieve and then sort of backing into, okay. We could use this solution for these displays, but this solution for these touchscreen kiosks over here, if that makes sense. So they don't have to pick one item, specifically, but they can customize their deployment using a digital signage CMS around the hardware combinations that make the most sense for what they're trying to achieve.

Okay. That makes sense. And so with all the challenges we very briefly mentioned with market and lead times and even supply chain obstacle, Alex, can you talk a little bit from Amazon's perspective on how a dedicated device like the Cynosure Stick, can reintroduce predictability and lower friction when it comes to an enterprise deployment?

Yeah. Absolutely.

And I think the market chaos and the supply chain bottlenecks caused by the AI boom is definitely something that everybody is experiencing, not something that Amazon's immune to either.

I think when Amazon signage thinks about predictability and reducing friction in the digital signage space, we probably think about it from from two perspectives. The first one is the dedicated device piece, and I think that goes into what John was saying a little bit about centralization. From our perspective as a hardware vendor in the space is more about standardization. Right? Knowing that the device that you're buying, the only purpose for it is for digital signage use cases, I think, a very comforting thought for our customers of all sizes.

They don't need to go pick and choose and pair different hardware together and hope the ecosystem kind of comes together. They know that this stick is made for digital signage, and that is the only use case of it. And all of the things and ecosystems kind of surrounding will support that particular use case as well. So I think at least from a predictability from a infrastructure standpoint, that's what we believe the the dedicated device will bring to our customer base.

But from the supply chain aspect of it, I think the predictability that Amazon can offer is more gonna be from a brand perspective. We've had decades of experiences making hardware for consumers and in other instances as well. We've navigated a lot of different market challenges during this time too. As you can imagine, there was a lot of things that we have to learn over time as well. So it all kind of accumulated to the supply chain experience that we have as it relates to maintaining our supply lines and making sure we have availability.

So when we launch a product, we make sure that we can actually live up to customers' expectations as it relates to that predictability and availability as well. So I think that's what we wanna bring to the digital signage market with our dedicated device and a combination of the two with a dedicated device and the Amazon signage stick and also Amazon's experience from a supply chain procurement and supply continuity standpoint brings a good marriage, especially in today's market chaos. So I think we've been pleasantly surprised that how well the markets adopted the solution, and, we're very honored to at least be, relied upon by by all of our business customers.

I mean, you know, Amazon's a powerhouse, and you wanna go with a name that has all that strength and reliability behind it. So, Chris, can you walk us through a real world scenario where a client hit a wall and how pairing the Amazon signage stick with Carousel kept the project moving?

Yeah. Happy to talk through that, customer example. And, I think what's really interesting about this is it illustrates, both, the benefits of picking a CMS that can run across all of the hardware that an IT team has inherited, and then also bring solutions that can move up a stalled project through, the entire sales journey, when there are budget constraints. So the the client specifically had a hundred and fifty displays spread across, their auto dealership, footprint.

Carousel was brought in early on, engaged their IT teams, and we determined that half of the displays that they had deployed, they were all system on a chip smart, smart screen displays. Half of them, were unable to support a modern CMS. So, the client, was basically faced with a budget increase that they weren't expecting to have to go and do a refresh on half of those displays. And as everyone knows that works in digital signage, unexpected increases like that really throw a wrench in the momentum that you have in a project and the customer, ultimately, their ability to deploy signage to communicate with their audiences.

So, what we presented to them, for the displays that they wanted to keep and not refresh was the Amazon signage stick. That allowed them to do two things. One, kept them in budget and able to deploy on time. And and two, just from, like, what they were familiar with with that centralized publishing, via Carousel, no no no change in experience, no change in their ability to communicate on those devices.

It's an enterprise grade solution that Carousel has worked very closely with the Amazon team to create really strong workflows that IT teams expect when they're deploying at scale. So, we were able to help bring that project in this year on budget, hundred and fifty screens, and that client is now engaging end customers in their showrooms, their break rooms, and their common areas. And I think this is just a really good example that just illustrates that power of being able to deliver something on time and on budget and move a project that otherwise would have definitely stalled or pushed to next year.

Yeah. I mean and I think those kind of case studies just illustrates the power of a solution, you know, between Carousel and Amazon, signage stick. And and I think that's what the IT leader needs to hear, you know, that success story to understand the value. And we're gonna have to wrap up, but I wanna ask Alex one last question.

How did Amazon even get into digital signage anyway?

And it seems like a off industry focus for a company like Amazon to support.

Yeah. I I get that question quite often. So yeah. So I I would say, Amazon started our digital signage journey actually from a customer lens perspective.

And like many of our businesses, we first serve ourselves and then we try to create a solutions that we're happy with. And then if it makes sense to bring to the external market, we will bring that to external market. And that's exactly kind of what happened here too. So in twenty early twenty twenty two time frame ish, Amazon was looking to modernize our communication throughout our, ecosystem and verticals that we serve.

And you can kind of imagine all the different business arms that Amazon has from our physical stores to, you know, our corporate offices and a lot of things that in Chris' customer story, he kinda mentioned, like, break rooms. We have all of those as well. And we want to modernize the communication in all of those spaces. And one of the things that's naturally kinda gonna come to mind for customers when you're trying to modernize is digital signage as it makes the, ability to communicate much more streamlined, the content switching much more in sync, etcetera.

So that's exactly kind of what we looked into as well.

When our IT team started looking into that space, what we found was that for dedicated hardware, it was extremely expensive. It was unclear how to get the hardware, whether it was through multiple channels or or something like that, but it wasn't easy to get our hands on. A lot of them had custom customized operating systems and and things like that too that does not fit in with the existing infrastructure fleets that we have. So we set on a journey to say, can we simplify this based on our own capabilities?

And what we did is we designed the version one of the Amazon Sign In Stick, and we deployed it internally. And our internal teams were so happy with it, and we were able to retrofit all of our use cases and deployed it in in multiple different Amazon locations at the end of twenty twenty four. And at that scale and size, we're already supporting a lot of different internal customers as well. So at that point, we felt comfortable to say, this might actually be something that the market can benefit from.

So at the end of twenty twenty four, we revamped the step. We we made, the hardware just a little bit more hardened and, changed a few of the customer experience aspects of it and bought it to the external market. So very similar to our other playbooks in AWS and things like that. We used ourselves first.

We felt the pain points, and then we felt like we have the, know how and the capabilities and scale to take on the customer responsibility, and then we bought it to the external market. Market. So that's kind of how we came full circle here, but it definitely started from a customer lens as well.

Yes. It seems amazing. It's less than two years, right, pretty much.

Yes. Exactly. Exactly.

Well, thank you guys for being here. I really enjoyed hearing about Carousel and the partnership and connection and the fact that Carousel and Amazon Sign and Stick presents a solution for a large majority of enterprises who you know, many of who are are not even, you know, on a full road yet for for digital signage. So it's pretty exciting. To our viewers and our listeners, check out digital signage today.

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