SCREEN: A Marketing Management System for Change

        Change is Everywhere

        Business as Usual

        A Different Approach to Change

        Good, But Not Enough

        Screening for Success

        Research

        Exploration

        Evaluation

        Further Reading

        David Erik Chase is a regional vice president with L. Robert Kimball & Associates, Architects and Engineers, Inc., in the firm's Syracuse, NY, regional office. In his 30-year career (20 in his own practice), Chase has been responsible for the marketing, design, and construction of $500 million in completed project. He is a former SMPS Upstate New York Chapter board member. He holds an MS in architecture from Columbia University and a Diploma from the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Fountainbleau, France.

        Change is Everywhere

        Nearly three decades ago, Marshall McLuhan wrote in his book, The Medium is the Message, "The medium, or process, of our time--electronic technology--is reshaping and restructuring patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal life. It is forcing us to reconsider and reevaluate practically every thought, every action, and every institution formerly taken for granted. Everything is changing--you, your family, your neighborhood, your education, your job, your government, your relation to others, and they're changing dramatically."

        Change is the synergy of paradigm evolution. Change is dangerous, fosters innovation, stimulates problem-solving, and rewards leadership.

        In the A/E/C field today, some would argue that change is out of hand. How can we manage? The traditional rules and benchmarks upon which we based our business plans cannot be depended upon as we attempt to predict profitability. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and most of all, threats, in the ever-changing marketplace have become commingled and unclear. Success is no longer measured by a practitioner's ability to solve client problems. Constant retraining of professional skills has become a burden on resources.

        Business as Usual

        We have been here all too often. Well, it is June, so it must be time for the midyear marketing/sales audit? Oh, of course. The request is made, and the project managers, sales staff, and marketing department are called to account and adjust. Everyone scrambles to update their lead files, hot prospects, and potential customer lists.

        If there is a company-wide method for measurement, the facts are communicated. Then what? Well, everyone gets busy again with their RFP responses, training sessions on Powerpoint, preparations for next week's trade show, and tomorrow's sales calls.

        Everything keeps changing, and the essential marketing planning function again slips to the back burner. When revenue and sales results reach new anxiety levels, once again a determined effort will be made to find out "where we are" and how to fix it...now.

        A Different Approach to Change

        Stop right here! What is wrong with this picture? If this scenario is familiar, then you probably do not employ a marketing management system for change. The management system must supersede all marketing/sales actions as the primary structure for the futurity of current marketing and business decisions. If no, change will be the structure, and you will not control your destiny-- someone or something else will. Change before you are forced to change.

        So, if we aggressively seek out change as a futurity of decision-making, establish the process to identify and enthusiastically embrace change, adopt change as a constant professional lifestyle, and manage change as linkages for marketing and sales actions, there will be a dynamic metamorphosis in business opportunities.

        This is the good news.

        Good, But Not Enough

        As an over-simplification of the marketing role in A/E/C firms, our task is to gather all available information and intelligence materials as a first priority and enter it into a management system. Without information in various forms, formats, and details, we cannot make informed decisions. Marketing for change is not bird-dogging for leads.

        Once the information is received, organized, and prioritized, then and only then can we proceed to the next step of processing. As marketers, it is our responsibility to develop and sustain a marketing/sales delivery structure that utilizes the dependable facts we retrieve to produce measurable, predictable, consistent, and desired results.

        This is not enough. The fast pace of change today requires a management system to organize the multi-faceted elements of change and the variables that will influence business marketing plans. In other words, change can be controlled, categorized, structured, processed, and used by employing what I call a SCREEN management system--Strategic Components (marketing and sales actions) to Research, Explore, and Evaluate New markets.

        Screening for Success

        Every day, change is at our doorstep. We are enticed with 463 tips on closing sales, 173 sure-profit schemes, 96 fresh ideas on how to win the big one, 42 secrets about the gatekeeper, 15 methods to boost our hit rate, and so on.

        The SCREEN format can be a viable management technique for setting policies and objectives in this atmosphere of change. With an established, constant framework for accepting the details and information on change, sub-SCREENs can be developed to meet any value, priority, or focal point for differentiation. The results will be affected only by our firm's business and practice bias. The three primary SCREEN elements are research, exploration, and evaluation.

        Research

        Very little, if anything, is said about the long-term advantages of solid, academic, in-depth market research. Whether the marketplace is geographical, service-oriented, building-type-specific, or global, our new and emerging markets are driven by complex factors beyond our control.

        Although they are beyond our control, these factors are not beyond our observation and comprehension. While tedious at times and ranking with the mundane, market research should be the engine that drives A/E/C marketing goals and objectives. If we do not understand a particular changing market and its place on the life cycle of demand, we may get caught short or miss the opportunity.

        Weld Coxe, in Marketing Architectural and Engineering Services, provides a clear window on market cycles. He explains the Levitt life expectancy of products or services as a cycle, which is critically important in the timing of any marketing strategy dealing with change:

        • Stage 1 Development. A service introduced to a new marketplace before there is much demand or service differentiation.

        • Stage 2 Growth. A period of time when service recognition and demand begin, and there is rapid expansion in the marketplace.

        • Stage 3 Maturity. The longest span of time during which the service satisfies the demand. Modifications for replacement of the service show signs of beginning.

        • Stage 4 Decline. The services exceed the demand and are no longer needed.

        Market research is absolutely necessary to anticipate all stages in the cycle. How many of us usually enter the market in Stage 3 and hang on through Stage 4, missing Stages 1 and 2 altogether?

        Obviously, most firms have some methods in place to undertake research. However, the majority of participants in this industry leave the research to tomorrow or to someone else.

        Exploration

        You may ask, what is the difference between researching a market/sales component and exploring it? In Paradigms, Joel Barker identifies five essential principles of strategic exploration:

        • 1 Influence Understanding: the ability to be able to understand what influences your perceptions as you set out to explore

        • 2 Divergent Thinking: the thinking skills necessary to discover more than one right answer

        • 3 Convergent Thinking: the thinking skills to allow focused integration of the data and establish priorities of choice

        • 4 Mapping: the capacity to draw pathways that show how you get from the present to the future

        • 5 Imaging: the ability to picture in words, drawings, or models what you found in your exploration of the future

        Exploring is a closer look at the general facts derived from the research mode. Are there changes in rules or trends? Are these changes fundamental? Exploration, then, looks at the content and process of any given market in change.

        For example, your research has identified a potential emerging market. In the not-too-distant future, a change will take place in the nursing home market. Pending federal legislation will provide funding for nursing home construction. The nursing home market is now sluggish because HUD 232 monies are drying up. If it passes the Senate, the new legislation will allow FmHa 515 monies to be piggy-backed with HUD 232 funds.

        What now? Research has revealed a potential emerging market. Your firm has a solid reputation in nursing homes in one region, so you have decided to explore further. Now, you apply a SCREEN you have developed for exploration, using the SWOT model to explore strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Your exploration may include a look at your firms professional and financial resources, experience, client networking, expanded geographical sphere of influence, competition, etc. By determining what is possible, you can now consider evaluate whether you want to "go" or not.

        Evaluation

        The entire focus of the go/no go evaluation process should be on the reality of a win. This SCREEN becomes the value process by which you seriously evaluate the merits of pursuing the market change. What resources are required for research and development, marketplace identification, competitive differential, positioning, and other long-range business goals? What will your investment bring in terms of future work and financial reward? How will cause and effect change over time? Your firm's biases, attitudes, personality, and image must be integral elements in your evaluation SCREEN.

        In 1967, Marshall McLuhan said, "The method of our time is to use not a single but multiple models for exploration--the technique of suspended judgment is the discovery of the twentieth century as the technique of invention was the discovery of the nineteenth."

        Transformational change will continue to drive the strategic components of marketing and sales actions. But, it will be the reliability of our internal marketing management systems, our SCREENs, that will harness and focus our opportunity models for the 21st century. The horizons will be the brightest for those leaders courageous enough to embrace the inevitable changes in our marketplace with creativity, energy, and commitment for the long haul.

        Editor's Note: David Erik Chase presently is developing a book and software (for release in 1997) that outline the practical applications of SCREEN methodology for marketers of change.

        For Further Reading

        ACEC/AGC, An Owner's Guide to Saving Money By Risk Allocation, 1991 ACEC/AGC, Managed Risk or Wild Gamble (Video)

        California Council AIA, Handbook on Project Delivery, 1996

        Gordon, Christopher M. "Choosing Appropriate Construction Contracting Method," Journal of Construction Engineering, ASCE, 1994