Strategic Portfolio Management is a systematic approach to aligning an organization’s projects, resources, and vendor relationships with business objectives. For AV integrators, it addresses the unique challenge of managing rapidly evolving technology portfolios while balancing limited resources across multiple projects. Unlike generic business tools, SPM for AV creates a unified view across sales, operations, and finance—eliminating the disconnects that lead to missed deadlines and eroded margins.
Using AI transforms the SPM approach by analyzing thousands of project data points to identify hidden patterns, predicting resource conflicts before they occur, and creating a continuously learning system that improves with each completed project. The result: better resource utilization, accurate project scoping, and data-driven vendor relationships that directly impact profitability.
SPM vs. PM Systems: Key Differences
While Project Management (PM) systems focus on executing individual projects efficiently through task tracking and timeline management, Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) operates at a higher level by optimizing all projects simultaneously. The PM answers, “How do we complete this project on time and on budget?” whereas the SPM addresses, “Which projects should we pursue and how do we allocate resources across them?” For AV integrators, this distinction is crucial—PM helps deliver current projects; SPM drives strategic decisions about which technologies to invest in, which vendor relationships deliver value, and how to balance specialized resources across multiple projects to maximize profitability and align with business objectives.
The following article shows how AI transforms enterprise SPM tools into practical solutions for AV integrators by analyzing project histories to predict resource conflicts, identifying hidden patterns in vendor performance, and creating digital twins of your operations that continuously learn. This makes sophisticated portfolio management accessible to smaller firms without requiring enterprise-level resources or data science expertise.
Let me tell you about the time I asked an AI to help me research Strategic Portfolio Management and ended up sketching the outlines of a platform that could change how AV integrators run their businesses. It sounds like the opening to a tech joke, but it was really the product of curiosity meeting opportunity in the age of agentic AI.
Suppose you run an AV integration firm, a consulting practice, or a manufacturer’s rep business. In that case, you know the chaos that comes with juggling projects, vendors, and client expectations all at once. Most firms lean on the same patchwork of tools: a project management system that never seems fully understood, endless spreadsheets that multiply like rabbits, team memory that evaporates at 5:00 p.m., and sticky notes that never stay put. I’ve lived through this experience with clients and colleagues, and I’ve watched how much it costs—not just in dollars, but in lost opportunities. Generic tools built for other industries don’t fit our world.
My journey started with a simple question: could Strategic Portfolio Management—long the domain of Fortune 500 companies—be reimagined for small and mid-sized AV firms? The obstacles appeared quickly. Enterprise SPM platforms are built for giants, priced at levels that make a 25-person shop laugh you out of the room. Meanwhile, AV firms live in a technology tornado where the learning curve of one solution collides with the launch of the next. On top of that, marketing often promises what operations struggles to deliver, setting off the familiar cycle of stress and finger-pointing I’ve seen firsthand in too many all-hands meetings. And of course, the industry itself is fragmented—thousands of small firms scattered across markets without the economies of scale or the bench of analysts that larger industries take for granted.
As I dug deeper, a different kind of framework began to take form—something that could bridge these gaps without forcing AV firms into enterprise molds. I call it Agentic Portfolio Intelligence for AV. At its core, it draws on four intertwined ideas.
The first is AI-powered decision support. I’m not talking about another chatbot, but digital twins of business processes that embody real expertise, work tirelessly, and grow smarter with each project. Today’s AI can sift through thousands of data points, spot patterns in resource allocation that no one has noticed, and capture the kind of institutional memory that too often walks out the door. It’s no longer science fiction—it’s something within reach for even modest-sized firms.
The second is visual portfolio management. We are a visual industry, yet we manage with grids of numbers. When I’ve used visual tools with clients, the difference is immediate. People see connections, clarity emerges, and meetings shift from confusion to alignment. Imagine starting the week with a visual map of your business—projects, resources, and profitability laid out in real-time, ready to be moved, adjusted, and understood at a glance.
The third is industry-specific benchmarks. Advice meant for law firms or bakeries doesn’t help an AV company. What helps is knowing that your project velocity is lagging behind that of your peers of a similar size, or that your labor utilization for conference room installations falls below the norm. These kinds of comparisons aren’t about scorekeeping; they’re about insight—knowing where you can improve based on real industry data.
And finally, human expertise remains essential. AI can process data at scale, but it doesn’t replace the nuance of judgment in a relationship-driven business. Any real solution keeps an expert voice in the loop, someone who can help interpret and guide the insights so they become actionable for a particular firm.
This is still conceptual, but I believe in the potential. With better portfolio visibility, firms could discover hidden inefficiencies that spell the difference between profit and loss. Sales and operations could finally work from the same playbook, replacing tension with collaboration. Vendor relationships—often formed by habit or vendor pressure—can be evaluated based on hard evidence of value delivered. The return on investment would vary by firm, but the greatest cost of all may be doing nothing: the opportunities lost while fighting fires with spreadsheets and sticky notes.
Imagine it from the perspective of different team members. A project manager begins the week with an AI assistant that has already flagged equipment conflicts and suggested resource reassignments. A procurement lead anticipates supplier delays before they occur and can pivot accordingly. A sales team walks into client meetings with confidence, armed with insights on what actually works for similar organizations. A firm owner examines a real-time dashboard that reveals not only which projects are profitable, but also why.
The encouraging part is that firms don’t need to start from scratch. Existing project management platforms, such as XTEN-AV, Q360, D-Tools, and Jetbuilt, already hold valuable data that can fuel portfolio intelligence. CRMs and financial systems add to that picture. Industry standards emerging from organizations like AVIXA could feed benchmarks back into the loop. The real task is integration—pulling these islands of information into a unified system. Middleware solutions, such as Praxis AI, and visual interfaces, like Kanban Zone, are already pointing the way toward how this might work. Firms like BQE are providing frameworks for transforming the way we view enterprise resource platforms.
To clarify the vision: I’m not suggesting that each AV firm should build its own custom SPM solution from scratch. That would perpetuate the problem of fragmentation. Instead, I envision an industry-specific platform that leverages the collective knowledge and data patterns across AV businesses while respecting the unique aspects of each firm’s operations.
Think of it as similar to how vertical-specific CRM solutions evolved. Salesforce provides the foundation, but industry-specific implementations, such as those for healthcare or financial services, add the specialized workflows and data models that make them truly valuable to those sectors.
In practical terms, this means building upon existing industry platforms, such as XTEN’s benchmarking initiatives, or integrating with widely used tools like Jetbuilt or Q360, while adding an AI layer that transforms data into actionable portfolio intelligence. The goal isn’t to replace these systems but to connect and enhance them—creating a management approach that feels like it was actually designed for AV businesses rather than adapted from generic business tools.
This approach would allow even small firms to benefit from sophisticated portfolio management without requiring enterprise-level resources. The specialized knowledge of AV business operations would be embedded in the platform itself, making implementation faster and outcomes more relevant.
I don’t claim to have all the answers. None of us does. What I do have is a working conviction shaped by a year of hands-on experimentation— building prototypes in Replit, modeling & building my own AI digital twin, exploring middleware platforms like Praxis, and testing how these pieces might actually help AV firms run smarter. This isn’t a finished recipe—indeed, the recipes themselves may differ by organization—but it has enough ingredients and a method to start cooking and creating a whole new genre of dishes.
Which raises a practical question: where’s a kitchen big enough for a lot of us to try creating some of these recipes together? That’s what excites me about the NEXXT organization—it’s the collaborative kitchen we all need right now: a shared space to prep, taste, and iterate with peers who are just as curious as I am. If some of this vision and direction resonates with you, join me there—bring a pain point, a dataset, or a sketch of a workflow—and let’s co-create, compare notes, and help lead and shape this vision together.
The AV industry has always been about creating experiences through technology. Isn’t it time we created better experiences for ourselves through better business technology? The spreadsheets and sticky notes have served us well, but as Bob Dylan might say if he were an AV consultant, “The times they are a-changin’.” And in this case, they’re changing for the better.
This article was written through a co-creative effort between the author and his agentic tool, Manus.im, and his editing cohorts, ChatGPT 5.0 and Grammarly for Business.
Craig Park, FSMPS, Assoc. AIA is the Director of Digital Experience Design at Clark & Enersen and the founder of CatalystFactor. With over 45 years of experience in AV and architecture, he advances future-ready technology, AI-enabled strategies, and digital twins. An award-winning thought leader, he publishes widely and speaks at AEC and AV conferences.. For more information, contact: craig.park@catalystfactor.com.
CatalystFactor Consulting helps professional service firms grow and compete by igniting positive change and multiplying impact. With expertise in AEC and AV integration, we blend proven frameworks, leadership development, and AI-enabled strategies to enhance positioning, business development, and technology adoption—empowering teams with scalable intelligence for sustainable success.
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