It’s an old argument but one that has been thrown into even sharper relief by the white heat of the recession. What we have on the one hand is the perception of some customers that office furniture is a commodity. This is a notion that has been strengthened as a direct result of the harder trading conditions. A desk is a desk, a chair is a chair and the best you can do is get the lowest price. You’ll even hear some furniture people say it (occasionally), which to my mind is very like sawing off the branch on which they are sitting.
On the other hand, the good news is that an increasing number of customers see the design and management of their offices as a strategic issue. They are concerned about space efficiency, knowledge management, corporate identity, churn, productivity and staff retention. For these buyers price is important but plays less of a role than finding a solution that helps them to do their job better, save some money in one way or another and even add some value. If there’s a business case for a system that outweighs price considerations, that system is what they will buy. This part of the market is fuelled by the work of organisations such as the BIFM, Design Council and RIBA and by research from The Work Foundation and CABE amongst others into the relationship between our environment and how well we work.
The ground on which this battle for hearts and minds can be won is where it’s always been: getting people to see the links between workplace design and the objectives of the organisation. Most importantly for a knowledge-based business, is how you get people to have more and better ideas, to share them with each other as well as clients, put them into action and be happier and feel better while they’re about it.
There is nothing new about the principles behind all of this. Elton Mayo, a professor at Harvard Business School, conducted the influential ‘Hawthorne Studies’ at the Western Electric Hawthorne Works in Chicago from 1927 to 1932. The ‘client’s’ motivation was obviously to get better productivity out of its workers, who in this case were women hand-assembling telephone relay mechanisms made up of about 40 components. Mayo took control groups and changed their working environment in a number of ways, including free meals, longer breaks and so on. In almost every case output increased. Mayo concluded that the psycho-social advantages that the women had enjoyed during their period of working in a more humane environment had given them a sense of camaraderie. They shared jokes and went out together socially. The benefits showed through in better work, and more of it. It points to the self-evident fact that happier workers work better.
Enlightened workplace design, as it might be called, tries to give every worker a comfortable space. The research that connects what might be called a ‘humane’ working environment to the happiness and therefore the productivity of workers is plentiful, overwhelming even. Good design, whether it is expressed in nice materials or simply an abundance of natural light, is nothing less than the outward manifestation of the organisation’s attitude towards it workers. What that boils down to is that the things with which you surround people influences how they feel about themselves, about their work and about whoever provided them with it all.
Whether the firms that supply office furniture choose to fight this noble fight or whether they slug it out on price is still a moot point while both of these ideas have viable markets based on whether and to what extent customers buy into the whole idea. (Of course it’s too simplistic to say there are two extremes, when in practice there is every possible point in between depending on the customer, so the question we have to answer is where on this particular spectrum we want to sit our business.)
There is an understandable compulsion to focus largely or solely on price. The commodity market has relatively few barriers to entry, you don’t need a story, it delivers quick results, the sales and marketing pitch is straightforward, there are a large number of products to choose from and if you miss the sale, you’ll know exactly why.
It seems attractive but of course there are difficulties, otherwise we’d all do it. The most important problem in my view is that however competitive you think you are, there’ll always be someone who will do things a little bit cheaper and a little bit worse. You get dragged into a downward spiral of cheaper products, missed jobs and higher discounts that will dramatically reduce your margins and leave you vulnerable whenever the market takes a downturn.
I believe that the better long-term option is to develop an added-value sales proposition that focuses on the needs of sophisticated buyers and on getting the message across in a more effective way to those who might be less sophisticated. That means not only selling better products but also offering the know-how and service levels to build a strong business case. In this scenario, the source of competitive advantage should be not only what’s in our brochures, but what’s in our heads.
What has become clear is that, in spite of the recession, many customers are willing to pay extra for products and a service that helps them do their job and keep their own costs down. It is this sort of thinking that is the core strength of the UK furniture industry. While things have been tough over the past year or more, sticking to certain principles continues to be a key strength of British firms. I think that the recession has focussed attention back on the importance of UK design and manufacturing, not only as something worthwhile in its own right but as a force for change and added value right across the economy. We just have to make the right products and the case for them.
Paul Edward is Director of Logic Office Group |
