Stop Being Just Designers and Be Problem Solvers

Coffee is a commodity. Steel is a commodity. Pork bellies are a commodity. But engineering and architectural design? This is not an inevitable result of current business conditions. It is a manageable business problem and innovative design firms are dealing with it. The problem is that many designers are allowing their customers to define their service as a commodity where the lowest price rules.

Design firms should keep looking for new market niches that look promising and hunting for cities where the grass is greener, but they must also examine what an engineer or architect can offer a client. It’s not simply the ability to produce a pretty design or an elegant solution. Designers are, in essence, problem solvers with training and experience in managing complex systems.

There are many firms in the industry that are beginning to understand their actual and potential role. They are not content to simply wait for a client to identify its own needs and then hope to get an RFP. Instead, they are able to go to a potential client and say: ‘I know your business, I know the problems you are facing and I can help you solve them.’ This applies to everything from developing an integrated multi-agency program to upgrade a city’s infrastructure, to analyzing a corporate distribution system to determine what facilities are needed for efficiency, to assisting an underdeveloped nation in planning a national transportation program.

It is time for design firms to break out of the mold they’ve made and redefine themselves not simply as engineers or architects but as problem solvers or solution finders. To do otherwise risks being lumped in with the rest of the commodities on the auction block.

Read the rest of this opinion piece from Mc Graw Hill Construction.