“Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation" in Psychological Review. Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations of humans' innate curiosity. His theories parallel many other theories of human developmental psychology, some of which focus on describing the stages of growth in humans. Maslow used the terms "physiological", "safety", "belongingness" and "love", "esteem", "self-actualization" and "self-transcendence" to describe the pattern that human motivations generally move through.”, - Wikipedia.
What do you want? This is one “bloody” honest question one must answer. Maslow said if you are damn poor, you only one to be fed but when you are damn successful, you want to be “self-actualization”. Meaning, your wants change according to time. You must have a reasonable want that you may think you can achieve within your means. You cannot possible have wants that is beyond your means. List out this wants in a list. What do you don’t want? If you cannot list your wants, at least list what you do not want. It is much simpler and it is the boundary that you do not wish to cross. By completing this task, you will be able to know for sure of what you want… I don’t know what I don’t want? This is drastic. If you don’t know what you don’t want or by the same token don’t know what you want, just stay put with what you are doing right now, currently and vow to do it better. That is the minimum consciousness you need to have. These wants when it is structured, organized and listed or itemized form the basis of needs. The architect calls it as the Client’s Brief. It is therefore the very intention of any model of production. It is a component of the trilogy of Intention – Action – Production.
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Strategizing Your Firm is an uphill battle for an architect. Your architectural education does not provide you with the essential knowhow to survive the Red Ocean. That is one good reason why a Business degree is always the preferred choice before you do a post Grad in Architecture. At the very least, you will not be a pauper. So what did the Business Guru has to say about strategizing? A “Farm House” matrix is a model of production to gauge the current situation of your organization against what you ought to be in the next level. Likewise, Architecture is a failed business model from the first principle and this matrix will tell you so. Relative Market Share (RMS) is a yardstick to measure the popularity of a product, in this case your services as an Architect. The higher the demands means your services are highly sought after and the reverse is true for the lower RMS. Market Growth Rate (MGR) is a yardstick to measure the ability of the organization to grow. Growth is in terms of acquiring RMS. The faster it is the better and it is very dependable on Marketing, Product Acceptance, Advertising, Lobbying and BRANDING… It eats up into your operation cost but together it is essential to push up your revenues. Errorneous (E) is the measurement of regressive of an organization of moving forward. It is a measurement of Self-Denial, Self-doubt and most importantly Self-Destruction (A Topic we shall discuss later). Go back to the business of architecture, you need to ask what your business model is? Production, Service or Design oriented? Then you dwell into the matter of Doing the Business, Branding and so forth… The greater E factors you have with regard to low MGR and RMS, you are considered a DOG. Someone that can easily forgotten and disposed of. There is very little value in the organization. If you woke up someday with lower E factors, will reorganize yourself. Re brand your establishment engage new talents. Have a good business plan. You will rise above being a DOG into something UNKNOWN. This is most start-up wannabe. The firm has the potential to grow ie. High MGR. It is a very good indicator for Investor to fund. Technical know who is essential to make higher RMS by disclosing new ventures and projects so that the masses believing into the trend. This is where a good CEO is needed. With the right opportunity your firm will be a STAR or GOD-like with high MGR and RMS. This is where the Firm is going to be RAPE by its shareholder and subsequently a downward path begins. With the decline of MGR, your firm is going on a plateau hopefully, as a CASH COW that continuously milked by its shareholders until a time where it becomes from GOD to DOG. That is the entire life cycle of your Firm. Strategize with this matrix in mind, you will know what action to take for being relevance and not forgotten into oblivion. We often come across the term – The Angry Boss. How often do we ask, why the Boss is angry? Well hypothetically he is angry because he is not able to complete a task perfectly and he aspect you to complete it perfectly. Because you are, in fact, imperfect and how is it possible for you to carry out a task perfectly? That is why he is angry and his anger will also make you angry and you throw your anger to your subordinate and everyone in the organization is angry. To mitigate such do a One Minute Management, daily: - 1 – MINUTE OBJECTIVE. For whatever we do contemplate for 1 minute what is our purpose and objective of doing such thing and write it clearly. For example, my objective is that by 3pm everyone should have a tea break. Can the HR look into these? 1 – MINUTE PRAISE. People say, praise must be cast in stone, insult should be written in sands. Praise your fellow mate for helping you even as small as picking up the phone for you. Trust me, it will make your day. 1 – MINUTE REPRIMAND. Your fellow mate is your mirror to oneself. It is good to reprimand someone who you think had done wrong – but that is only for 1 minute and no longer. For example, hey! Why the HR only brief us on the spot without issuing the guidelines much earlier? 1 – MINUTE APOLOGY. Be brave and if you had identify your shortcomings just ADMIT and apologies. Live moves on. For example, Aiya! My mistake… I should have given you more time to vet the document… It is PERFECT to be IMPERFECT. Drill oneself of these 4 mantras and everybody’s life will be better. Give it a try! What is in a Business of Architecture? What makes a FIRM ticking? It is again the model of production – A Stage, A Script and The Crews. A Stage – Is defined as a Hardware. Its address speaks a thousand words. A Firm in CBD is different from a Firm in the Suburb. The Location, Imagery and its Organization gives meaning to a BRAND. Your office represents what and who you are! The Crews – Is defined by its ORGANIZATION. Organization is who’s who within the confine of an Office (Stage). There is a “BOSS”, called it by whatever name – CEO, MD, Managing Partner, Principal, he is the “Fountain Head”. He alone makes the ultimatum. If you have 2, the organization is going to doom. Subsequently, it is ROLE PLAYING. The head is supported by his team, all in it is called the ADMINISTRATION. Different components or ROLES are classified as PRODUCTION, MARKETING, IT and so on so forth, each potentially becomes a full-fledged company in itself. Crossing this line, it is an amalgamation of Holding Company with its Subsidiaries. This ORGANIZATION defines its POLITIC. THE SCRIPT – Each Crew liked an ACTOR has different SCRIPT such as LEADERSHIP, STAFFING, DIRECTING and CONTROLING. Leadership is best done by example. There are basically 2 types of leadership – the BOSS and the LEADER. You choose… Staffing is what you want your staff to be 5 years down the road. There is a different between a Career and a Job. Every employee should have a Career path, not just a Job scope! Directing is another word for Communication. Right communication is essential. If the instruction is clear, the execution erred – it is the executives’ mistake. If the instruction is unclear, the execution erred – it is the superior’s mistake. Communication is to put a decision into action and worse of all is no decision and not wrong decision. It is judgement call. Everyone should have it. For standardization is good practice to lay them down as SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) and DL (Discretionary Limits). Controlling is the flow of authority. If it originates from the top, it is called top down control and there are various sort of controls. What is your preference? When you gel all these together, you get yourself a FIRM. Let’s look at what is in a BRAND. There are 4 quadrants to where your products are graded: - The first quadrant is where your product is too generic and has no exposure WHATSOEVER to the market thus being irrelevant. In simple word, what is your Architecture? If you are doing the sort of Architecture as just another production oriented firm, you are in the stage of HOPELESS. This is where most startups are. The second quadrant will see your product move vertical upward. You need your product to be relevant! So, technically you sell your stuff to Design and Built contractors and Developers who can immediately tap into your resources either on pro-bono, below market price or delay gratification basis. At this stage you move from being technically competent to technically intimate with relationship builds after time. You will be known among the circles of people who employed you and to a certain degree take advantages of you. Such your product or Architecture is still very generic in nature. This is what is probably known as COMMERCIAL ARCHITECT. You are just ONE of MANY! The third quadrant is a horizontal approach. You tend to be Artistic and Passionate about what you are designing. You may have a grand scheme that nobody wants. Who cares? It fills your ego but it may not fill your hunger. You are born rich and you have no family to feed. It is OKAY! This is the sort of Stararchitect in the making. The Primadonna that NOT anyone can be. Your product is so distinctively individual that it is waiting for the right Audience to appear and to accept. The fact is you remain IRRELAVANT. The fourth quadrant is a GRAND BRAND. It is highly relevant meaning acceptance by the Public and absolutely distinctive. This is where most of the successful practices are. What has it in common? Your product must be CREDIBLE. Being credible means there must be a degree of trusts put upon your product either in production, services or design. Credibility can only be built upon years but you can destroy within second. That is why BRAND promises, INDIVDUAL don’t. Your product must be UNIQUE but not necessary functional. There must be some kind of architectural concoction that only you can produce and everybody can remember it. That is your kind of Architecture. Your product must be RELEVANT. In other words it must be CONTEXTUAL, FINANCIALLY and TECHNOLOGICALLY VIABLE and SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE to a certain degree of POLITICALLY CORRECT. There must be the audience or consumer that constantly consume your product and perpetually financing you. Your product must be MOTIVATING. It must create a following, a campaign or a movement so that the masses are your believers. This is where you make your product like a cult, religion or the “Opium”. You subconsciously imprint your Brand into people’s thought. You manipulating their desires and selections without giving people choice for selection. In summary, reaching the Grand Brand is not too far off. It is a diagonal movement along the 4 quadrants. You make a balance between “one of many” and “waiting to happen”. Ultimately translating into creating your very own BLUE OCEAN. There are 6 aspects to Business Development also known as MARKETING MATRIX. You must understand your PRODUCT and what you offer. This goes back to the approach of your firm’s orientation such as DESIGN driven, SERVICE driven or PRODUCTION driven. Most start-up will start with PRODUCTION driven. This what known as the “bread and butter” of architecture where recycle of workable plans, fast churning of production drawings and fast authority approval for a mediocre fee are the order of the day. When you are in the market for some time and able to survive the “red-ocean”, you want to carve a name for yourself you start to leech to newbies developer, you start to shift gear to SERVICE driven. Some goes as low as to “SLEEP” with potential clients to get JOB. Some went into POLITICS and be the cronies. Ultimately the performance is measure as to how good your relationships with the Clients. The quality of your product does not count. When you are comfortable enough with the jobs available, you have the opportunity to choose and select and such potentially make you a Starachitect. On this pedestal only then you are DESIGN driven in a “Blue-Ocean” you had created. You must understand who you are OFFERING to. What will be your market segment? Start-up will approach individual owners because you have no precedent to showcase. Interior works are best to start with for its short gestation period and potentially gloss over magazines. Later they will be promoted to engage with Developers with all kinds underlying tactics. Some will operate as “in-house” others will be engaged as outsourcing that the firm will need to finance itself during the gestation period – also called delayed gratification. Some will be partnering with foreign firms in creating their blue ocean and the lists go on. You must understand if your offering is UNIQUE. There goes your branding liked ECO-ARCHITECTURE, BIO-CLIMATIC, ICONIC and so forth. This is to create your own market segment – we called “Blue-Ocean” strategy. To garner such you must appear to be EXCLUSIVE. For example, there is a Firm whose individuals happened to be once the President of the Institute of Architecture. He lobbied and headed the newly minted Green Certifying Body under the auspice of the institute. He set his rule and game plan. For out of the Blue, he champions for Green Building and marketed his firm as Guaranteed Green Building Certified Architect in town. Whoever developers wannabe Green must go to him for he only knows how to go about it and no one else. You must know your PRICE. It is true that the bottom line of any commercial decision is the price. Do you know how much your service worth? It is naïve to think that there is no price war within architectural practices although it is mandatory for all to follow the minimum fee rule. The BIG BOYS are throwing their fee just to keep their organization afloat and the SMALL FRIES are surviving on shoe-string budget waiting to go bust. Price war is the stupidest thing to do and yet is the most practical thing happening in this industry. Both the Board and the Institute cannot do anything about it because it is believed that they are the party to it as well. Learn to be smart with pricing. You must know how to PROMOTE. Promoting a BRAND is a better choice of word. The practice as a BRAND where Brand Promises, individual don’t. You must be a MEDIA’s darling. You must create events and generate awareness. You must be seen championing a cause. You must engage in Social Media. You must cultivate Brand Awareness within your own organization. You must LIVE as the Brand. You must communicate with the Brand via your writings, speeches, social works and so forth. It must be a 360 days awareness campaign to make your Brand jingles in everybody’s head. If nobody ever knew you existed in the first place, you are a total FAILURE. In summary, you must have a good PRODUCT. Then you BRAND the product. Next, you PROMOTE the Brand. With the Brand you open up your MARKET SEGMENT. The Market Segment will indicate your PRICE – This is PROGRAMMING. There are 4 aspects to BUSINESS LIFE-CYCLE – at least in theory la….. Getting the Business – Business Development. We need a FLESHY PORTFOLIOS. Works that can sell itself without much deliberating. We need to create more SEXY-Buildings. The wow factors that will excite the potential client. If it is not the building we need SEXY-People. Good looking people and charming orators that can sell ice to the Eskimo. We need SEXY-Coverage from the Medias, although the Board is very cautious about it! We need to be creative to work around it. We need to “buy” our way through the intriguing networks of brokers, managers and lobbyists. That is reality – the $ speaks loudest. Over-promise is NEVER a Sin. Under deliver – YES! We also need SEXY-Address. Imagine one lobbying for jobs amounting to Billions with an office somewhere in the slum? Doing the Business – revenue. Revenue is your BLOOD line, without it everything will “close shop”. Revenue comes in the form of your collections, invoices, bills and so forth. You have to find ways to increase revenue and none other by Getting the Business! Newbies mistake is to provide FREEBIES in the form of Free Proposals that brokers will salvage to sell them to their potential clients in your expanse, not theirs. That is a FAIL Business Model. Recruit debt collectors if necessary because in this line of business, payment is always on credit terms. Overall it is unhealthy. The paradigm has to change. Perhaps bridging loan is a short term solution. Remember, REVENUE = PRODUCTION COST + PROFIT. Either way both production cost and profit have to increase! Managing the Business – Effective Delegation. One reason business fail is because the Principal abdicated its role to someone else. Abdication is not Effective Delegation. Effective Delegation comes with the reward, abdication – no. Effective Delegation comes with a precise objectives and discretionary limits, abdication – no. Effective Delegation comes with proper reporting, abdication – no, and the list can go on. If one fails to delegate, the organization will not grow. The real assets of the firm is Human Capital, not the owner. The owner is credited for its foresight and vision. In other words, if you find someone asking the screw driver to do a hammer’s job, you know it is going to be trouble! Financing the Business. This is the very one aspect that makes Architectural Practice a FAIL business model. Firstly, Architectural Practice is heavily dependable on human capital and production technology plus all the fixed expenditure and that incurred REAL Cost. Second, services payment are on credit terms and may not be prompt. Such Financial Charges will add up into our REAL Cost and if you are not careful you will end up with LOAN SHARKS. Thirdly, recouping Bad Debts are a risky business due to high Legal Cost and Prolonged Legal Battle. Holding ransom with the Letter of Release will not offer much help. It fails on the first principle and it really doesn't make money sense to run a firm. Yet, people does it! Why? These 4 aspects will continue to haunt you. Once in a while you will rudely wake up from your sleep with chilling sweats that you need to make up for the 100K pot holes to keep your firm up and running before the bank foreclose your personal property. If you care to look at the profitable firms, you will understand that they had broken away from this paradigm. The question now is… what is this new paradigm? Knowing a little of how an Architectural Firm doing business is a good thing. As the saying goes, Business Development (BD) is not a sole individual responsibility but the entire organization’s objective. Without it, there will be no Clientele. Without the client, there will be no business and the consequences are too horrifying to even think about. Everyone within the organization will go hungry, so are their families. Saying such, what is the Architectural Business Model? What do we do to make a living? That is the fundamental. Sure, we say we makes DREAM. We CREATE. We know the BEST because we are the Architect. Dunno what I am saying? Watch the “Fountainhead”, you will know what I am talking about. In reality, it NEVER HAPPENS the way you intended it to happen. Let’s look at the Business options available: -
Among the 3 business orientations where are we? Which direction we want to go? How to go about it? |
I am sharing these information with a caveat that these information is for educational purpose only and shall not be taken as an advice be it legal or otherwise. You should seek proper advice to your case with the relevant professionals. The author cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information so provided here.
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