CASE TWO: Architecture Firm

CASE TWO:
Architecture Firm

Client

Widely recognized as the market leader in luxury hospitality design, the client is a global architecture firm that has been in business over 60 years and has offices in North America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

The Situation

DCG was originally approached by the client to provide executive coaching. Through the coaching process, DCG discovered the firm’s problems went beyond its management team; it wasn’t evolving quickly enough to keep up with a rapidly changing market and the recent technological advancements that were significantly changing how work was done. Despite years of dominating the market, the firm was beginning to lose its position, as its competitors were quickly catching up. Therefore, DCG facilitated a complete overall of the firm’s mission, vision and overall strategy to not only enable the company to thrive in the present, but be better prepared for the future.

DCG’s Approach and Contribution

Utilizing the best thinking from within the company and from outside experts, DCG partnered with the client to develop a clear and relevant new strategy. Using its Vision2Reality©methodology, DCG led the effort to create a process that the board of directors and executives teams could fully embrace to truly “design” their future.  The Vision2Reality© methodology was also customized to the unique architectural mindset.

Through an exploration and assessment of the client’s core competencies and skills, its overall goals and a market scan and analysis, DCG worked with the client to formulate a very robust and specific mission and vision for the company. In addition, we led a “performance dialogue” to develop a comprehensive 5-year strategic plan that would provide specific direction for the organization. The updated mission and vision statements were integrated into the company as guiding principles (known as the “Big 6 Ideas”), which served as both an anchor and propeller for the organization. In addition to the strategic update, a new visual identity was created to reflect the ‘reinvention’ of the organization.

DCG also worked with the client to develop an execution plan, communication plan and appropriate metrics that would help ensure that the strategic plan was fully implemented.  Executive coaching was also continued to enable the firm’s executives to lead the way in the origination of this enterprise-wide change.

Impact and Results

As a result of these changes, the organization beat its yearly revenue goals by at least eight percent in the first three years of implementation. The organization also expanded its service lines and thoughtfully adopted additional product types while still staying close to its core competencies.

DCG helped the client reestablish itself as the market leader, capitalizing on its commitment to design and leveraging its proprietary approaches.  Customers and employees responded to the re-energized company.  DCG helped the client not only find a clear direction, but provided the support to ensure proper execution and a methodology to be utilized for any future strategic changes.