The Magnum Group
Its about twenty after 9, on a Tuesday morning, Im an architect and Im thinking that life is bed of roses. But it wasnt like that a year ago
This time last year, the revenues of my practice were shrinking at an alarming 15% annual rate
I was trying everything in the book to pull the revenues out of tailspin, primary of which was outsourcing most of our CAD drafting offshore. That exercise failed miserably, and I couldnt even start to figure out why.
We had been very diligent in selecting the service provider (Himalaya Zeta CAD, based in India)
got custom samples done, and ramped up slowly to midsize assignments, to the point where Himalaya successfully drafted a 120,000 square-foot, mixed-use project in Miami
Bertie Spalding, the our Project Manager for the Miami job, was impressed with their work. We decided to move Himalaya even further up the ladder of design complexity.
We had just been awarded the design of a 1,250-room luxury hotel in a major metropolis. We decide to ask Himalaya to draft the lobby, restaurants and service areas. We put Henry Kluger, one of our middle-level architects, in charge of the outsourcing activity.
But Himalaya kept doing it wrong; they couldnt keep up with the schedules and we missed several important deadlines with the customer. We ended up hiring 18 temporary draftsmen at $40 n hour to finish the schematic drawings inhouse.
This set the project back by a whole month. The customer, justifiably angered, withdrew the design contract from our firm, moved to one of our competitors and left us in a hole $32,000 deep.
I was surfing the net around that time looking for tips on refinancing my house when I saw this article on outsourcing CAD. Give the service provider good tech support or perish, it said. Hmmm
I thought we had given that support, but in any case decided I would ask Himalaya their opinion.
The results were shocking
Henry Kluger had not responded to their questions in time and on some occasions not at all. They had to fly in a storm without instruments. Give us good support and we can do anything, they said.
We decided to give Himalaya another chance. This time it was the County Civic Center, half a million square feet downtown. We asked Himalaya to draft the atrium, the shopping mall and the auditorium. Bertie Spalding coordinated from our end and I carefully watched over the communication with Himalaya.
Bertie answered each of their questions in detail and on the same day. He talked to Himalaya on the phone several of times a week. Himalaya used collaboration software to show Bertie its monitor screens in real time. Our software tech took care of the mechanics of uploading and downloading.
The work flew and we completed it before schedule. The customers were so happy that they promised us the design of the County Hospital in as soon as the funding was in place.
Our firm now thrives on our outsourcing expertise. Also, were getting known as the county building specialists. The smell of roses is all over the office.
So be seized of the secret: Give your architectural drafting service provider good tech support and good communication if you want the relationship to stay meaningful and effective.
Good luck and have a blast!
(This story is based on a true incident; names have been changed to protect the privacy of people and firms as well as the confidentiality of projects.)
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