Is There an “Amazonification” of Architectural Services?
Posted on May. 31, 2022 / General / Subscribe 0
AUTHOR: Ken Lambert Contact
We hear all the time that the recent pandemic merely accelerated trends in business and society that were already occurring, and that may generally be true. One thing that I can say without question is that today, in May 2022, the number of Amazon delivery vans that circle my neighborhood are about triple what they were in 2019.
Reinforcing that, Amazon has been building right here in eastern Massachusetts, and they continue to build and expand their footprint at a significant rate. That includes in NH and RI as well.
The point here is not to condemn Amazon; they are responding to (and profiting from) a need and want.
Eighteen months ago, many people could not or would not easily leave their homes to go shopping. They got very comfortable with ordering nearly anything online, and then seeing it at their doorstep, in most cases, the next day. They want something; they easily find the best/cheapest price for it, they order it- and they want it in their hands immediately. That is the basis of what much of the economy has become in 2022.
This “ultra-retail” and customer service/ customer-centric attitude is not just encompassing the purchase of clothing or lawn furniture. Healthcare has also been moving in this direction for some time now. I’m not in the medical field myself, but I have it on good authority that healthcare customers (patients) are more demanding and assertive now than they were 5-10 years ago. Ten years ago, it was pretty difficult to find many options or times to go see a doctor on a Saturday or a Sunday. Now you can, be it your own doctor or one of these “Minute-Clinics” or “Convenient MD’s”, etc. Now, to stay in business, outpatient clinics must essentially be open all weekend. Do the employees there want to be open then? Probably not.
Is there any evidence that this is happening in the architectural design community?
Are owners/developers demanding or expecting more services, for less money, in shorter timeframes? If every other aspect of most sectors in the economy is heading in this direction- why wouldn’t it be the case for the A/E world?
If this is the case, how is it effecting your firm? How do you handle it? Are there high-level discussions aimed at resisting this retail/ “a la carte” means of conducting business? Can it even be resisted in a meaningful way?
We hear all the time that now, “post-pandemic”, we are in a “new normal”. Those words, “new normal”, mean a lot of things. It seems like a catch-all, really. Is there a new normal for providing architectural services- or are we just back to 2018 or 2019 again?
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