Saving time and saving money—businesses are constantly looking for ways to do both. In that pursuit, IT teams are often brought in to identify opportunities to consolidate technology and reduce overall spend.

IT teams are under constant pressure to do more with less. One often-overlooked opportunity: the sprawl of digital signage vendors quietly draining budget, time, and IT bandwidth across the organization.

Over the past 15 years, digital signage has expanded into virtually every industry—and that growth has produced hundreds of niche vendors. The result? Many organizations end up managing three, four, or more separate signage platforms, each with its own contracts, security protocols, admin portals, and support relationships.

The global digital signage market is expected to grow from 91.5 million active displays in 2023 to 149.4 million by 2028—and industry analysts note the market remains highly fragmented, with consolidation increasingly necessary as digital signage becomes business-critical. IT teams that get ahead of this now will save significantly on cost, complexity, and risk.

Here's what's driving the problem—and how consolidation fixes it.

Businesses are constantly looking for ways to save both time and money. In that effort, IT teams are often tasked with identifying opportunities to consolidate technology and reduce overall spend.

One area for IT teams to look into is digital signage. Over the past 15 years, digital signage has expanded across nearly every industry, giving rise to a wide range of niche vendors—and leading many organizations to work with multiple digital signage vendors. Yet, managing multiple digital signage platforms is a complex and costly endeavor. This is where IT can help. In this blog, I’m going to get into the reasons why consolidation is the right choice, and what to consider when it comes to choosing a single platform.

Why Companies Use Multiple Vendors for Digital Signage

Vendor sprawl rarely happens by design. It builds up gradually, driven by a few predictable patterns that IT teams see again and again. Often, different departments within a company are unaware of the digital signage solutions already in place or believe that what exists simply won’t meet their needs. Both of these scenarios lead departments to seek out and purchase new solutions independently.

For example, a marketing team might purchase a specific digital signage solution for customer-facing displays, while the HR department might acquire a different system for internal communications. Yet, with an enterprise-grade platform, both of those applications—and many others—can be easily managed, with access to content management for each one segregated by department.

Sometimes, though, companies end up with multiple signage platforms due to mergers and acquisitions and other historical decisions. We often see legacy systems implemented years ago that are no longer the best fit for the company.

And, even more often than that, we see companies with multiple platforms due to the simple fact that not all people understand what digital signage is. Meeting room signs, menuboards, interactive directories, video walls, KPI displays, and more all fall into the digital signage category, but not everyone realizes that.

Consider a facility manager; they aren’t looking for digital signage—they just need meeting room signs and a few directories. So they might go out and find one provider for the room signs and another for the directories. Both applications can be run with a single platform, as can the applications needed by the marketing department, the HR team, and other teams within the company.

Yet, these teams don’t see it all as digital signage. They simply think about the things their team needs. In all of these scenarios, IT can be the team to bring order to the chaos. (existing content)

Consolidation not only simplifies management but also ensures a cohesive and secure digital signage strategy that aligns with your organization's goals and objectives.

Siloed Buying Across Departments

When departments don't communicate—or don't know what's already in place—they buy independently. Marketing picks up a solution for customer-facing displays. HR sources something separate for internal communications. Facilities goes out and finds a vendor for meeting room signs and lobby directories.

None of these teams think they're creating redundancy. They're just solving their immediate problem. And because enterprise digital signage platforms offer role-based access controls that let each department manage their own content independently, most of these purchases were never necessary in the first place.

And that’s not where the benefits end—companies also benefit by:

Streamlining Governance and Compliance

Governance and compliance are essential aspects of managing digital signage, especially for large enterprises. Multiple platforms can make it difficult to enforce governance policies and ensure compliance with industry regulations.

A consolidated platform allows for centralized governance, making it easier to implement and monitor compliance policies. This ensures that all content displayed on digital screens meets the organization's standards and regulatory requirements.

Centralized governance also enables organizations to maintain better control over their digital signage network. IT teams can set permissions and access controls to ensure that only authorized users can publish content, reducing the risk of unauthorized or inappropriate content being displayed.

Additionally, a unified platform can provide audit trails and reporting tools that help organizations track and document compliance with internal policies and external regulations.

By consolidating digital signage platforms, organizations can enhance their governance capabilities and ensure that their digital signage network operates securely and compliantly.

Moreover, a centralized content management system, like the one Poppulo provides, allows for granular governance. This means that content scheduling and management can fall to individual teams, leaving IT to manage the tech stack, not the content.

Check it out here in this short video:

Enhancing IT Security

IT security is a critical concern for any organization. Multiple digital signage platforms can introduce varying levels of security, making it difficult to enforce a consistent security posture. This inconsistency can create vulnerabilities that hackers might exploit.

Consolidating digital signage platforms allows IT teams to implement a unified security strategy, ensuring that all screens are protected by the same robust security measures. This reduces the risk of security breaches and simplifies the process of maintaining and updating security protocols.

A single, consolidated platform also makes it easier to monitor and manage security threats. IT teams can quickly identify and respond to potential vulnerabilities, minimizing the risk of data breaches and other security incidents.

Reducing Operational Costs

Managing multiple digital signage platforms can be costly. Each platform may require its own set of licenses, maintenance contracts, and support services.

These costs can quickly add up, straining the IT budget. Consolidating digital signage platforms can reduce the number of licenses and maintenance contracts needed, leading to significant cost savings.

Additionally, IT teams can focus their efforts on a single platform, which leads to more efficient resource use and reduces the need for extensive training on multiple systems.

A consolidated platform can also reduce indirect costs associated with managing multiple systems. In addition to direct cost savings, IT teams can spend less time troubleshooting and resolving issues, leading to increased productivity and reduced downtime.

A single platform can also simplify procurement and vendor management processes, allowing organizations to negotiate better terms and pricing with a single vendor. Overall, consolidating digital signage platforms can help organizations optimize their IT budgets and allocate resources more effectively.

Facilitating Scalability

As organizations grow, their digital signage needs will evolve—we see this constantly. We have clients like Delta who have been with us for over a decade, and the applications they initially deployed are a far cry from what they have today, as you can see here. We’ve seen clients go from deploying a handful of signs initially to now managing thousands of screens and applications—but not all platforms provide that degree of scalability.

Whether adding new screens, integrating with other systems, expanding to new locations, or adding new applications, a single platform can adapt more easily to changing requirements. This scalability ensures that the digital signage system can continue to meet the organization's needs without requiring a complete overhaul.

Putting a Bow On It

The need for IT to consolidate digital signage platforms is clear. By streamlining content management, enhancing IT security, reducing operational costs, improving user experience, facilitating scalability, and enhancing governance and compliance, organizations can maximize the benefits of their digital signage investments.

Consolidation not only simplifies the management of digital signage but also ensures that the system can effectively support the organization's communication and operational goals.

As businesses continue to navigate the complexities of the digital landscape, a unified digital signage platform will be a critical asset in achieving success.

Consolidating digital signage platforms is a strategic move for IT teams. By bringing systems under a single platform, you’re not just making life easier for your content managers, you’re also strengthening security, cutting down on costs, improving the user experience, and making it easier to scale up. Plus, you significantly reduce governance and compliance risks.

With one platform, managing your digital signage becomes a walk in the park. If you’re looking for a single platform, look closer at Poppulo. You’ll get a robust system capable of supporting your organization’s communication and operational goals across as many endpoints and applications as you need today or tomorrow. Interested in learning more? Reach out!

FAQs

What is digital signage consolidation?

Digital signage consolidation is the process of replacing multiple digital signage systems with a single, unified platform. Instead of managing different vendors, software tools, and content workflows across locations or departments, organizations centralize everything—content creation, distribution, device management, and analytics—into one solution. This reduces complexity and gives teams a consistent, scalable way to manage screens across the enterprise.

Why do companies end up with multiple digital signage vendors?

Most organizations don’t plan for fragmentation—it happens over time. Different departments may adopt their own tools to solve immediate needs, mergers and acquisitions introduce new systems, and regional teams often choose vendors independently. In some cases, legacy platforms remain in place because replacing them feels disruptive. The result is a patchwork of solutions that are difficult to manage, costly to maintain, and inconsistent in performance.

What are the benefits of consolidating digital signage platforms?

Consolidation simplifies operations and delivers measurable business value. Teams can manage all screens from a single interface, reducing manual effort and training requirements. Costs typically decrease due to fewer licenses, vendors, and support contracts. Content becomes more consistent and easier to scale across locations, while centralized analytics provide clearer insights into performance. Overall, consolidation improves efficiency, reduces risk, and enables a more cohesive communication strategy.

How does consolidation improve digital signage security and governance?

When digital signage is fragmented, enforcing security policies and governance standards becomes challenging. Consolidation brings everything under one platform, making it easier to apply consistent access controls, user permissions, and content approval workflows. IT teams gain better visibility into devices and can push updates, patches, and security protocols from a central location. This reduces vulnerabilities, ensures compliance, and helps protect both the network and the content displayed on screens.

What should IT look for in an enterprise digital signage platform?

IT teams should prioritize a platform that is secure, scalable, and easy to manage. Key capabilities include centralized device management, robust user permissions, and enterprise-grade security features like encryption and single sign-on. The platform should integrate with existing systems, support a wide range of hardware, and offer reliable performance at scale. Strong analytics, remote monitoring, and flexible content management tools are also essential to ensure long-term success and adaptability.