There’s no better platform on which to build a successful business strategy than the voice of the customer. And the voices I heard last week visiting some of our top customers affirmed Glass & Mirror Craft is offering a value proposition tightly aligned with a growing need in today’s building industry.
In speaking with several prominent glaziers, I heard that more and more architects are becoming increasingly focused on theory and aesthetics. These architects basically hand off the “how” to build the project to the general contractor, who is primarily focused on calendar and budget. So the GC hands off the design aspects to the subcontractors, and in the case of the glass, the glazing contractors.
This puts a tremendous amount of burden on glaziers, since they are the ones that have to deliver the practical application. This is tolerable when the glazier can operate in its comfort zone. One glazier may be expert an installing the building façade, and so only wants to do facades. Another may only want to do interior glass offices. Glaziers, like anybody else, have limited resources, and they’re going to deploy those resources to those areas of a project that generate the biggest bang for the buck.
Where it becomes uncomfortable is when glaziers are asked to tackle those parts of a project where they don’t want to dedicate the kinds of resources required, and in many cases will walk away from the project because they don’t have the time to do it, or can’t do it. Oftentimes, this space is in the confluence of the building – where outside meets inside – the glass canopies, the glass atriums and vestibules, the cable-supported glass structural walls, the glass and metal guardrails, and so on.
At Glass and Mirror Craft, our most successful projects are the ones where we can offer our own level of “design assist” to the glazier for the parts of the project where we are subject matter experts.
We have the engineering and project management staff to take on “how” to bring the architect’s vision to life. We design and deliver the vestibule or the structural wall or other project element with stamped drawings. We plan the best way to kit and schedule the delivery of our products to flow installation. And we are on call to be on site to ensure everything goes right.
Design assist is something we like to do, and do very well. We have a growing portfolio of successful projects that demonstrate this capability. It’s something to consider when selecting your next glass fabricator.
