The recent integration of Archicentre with the Institute has prompted a range of questions from interested members, so the following summary of Archicentre’s strategy and future direction has been prepared, drawing on information submitted to both the Archicentre Board and Institute National Council, to outline the role and the strategic direction of the organisation.

Background

Archicentre has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Institute since the business was founded in 1981. Archicentre’s charter is essentially to create business opportunities for Institute members, through a number of mechanisms.

Since it’s inception, Archicentre has created hundreds of thousands of opportunities for members to interact with the general public through the provision of property inspections and renovation designs, many of which have been converted by members into full-service commissions. More recently, Archicentre has provided consulting services to a range of corporate and government clients including project home builders, land developers, property managers and state government agencies.

In 2012, the Archicentre Board and the Institute’s National Council made a strategic decision to integrate Archicentre’s operations fully within the Institute, while retaining the Archicentre Pty Ltd company vehicle and public facing brand. The Board and Institute saw that there existed a range of un-realised synergies between the two organisations, particularly for Archicentre to leverage its consumer-facing brand into a stronger advocacy role.

A number of key actions were then taken to pursue integration including Archicentre’s company structure changing from Ltd to Pty Ltd, Archicentre’s CEO replaced by an Institute General Manager and the integration of business units began, commencing with ‘shared service’ functions such as Marketing.

Strategic Direction

The changes noted above highlighted the need for a strategic redirection of Archicentre, particularly reflecting the opportunity to increase Archicentre’s role to advocate for the value of architects and architecture. Through some detailed work exploring Archicentre’s strategy and brand, a number of key outputs shaping Archicentre’s future have emerged.

At a strategic level, opportunities emerged for Archicentre to support the viability of small and emerging architectural practices, and as noted above, to demonstrate the value of architects and architecture to the community.

At the brand level, principal outputs included that the strength of the Archicentre brand lies in the quality of its architects and the ‘match-making’ role it plays in bringing together architects and members of the community. Underpinning this are notions of trust, professionalism, qualifications, creativity and individuality. It was recognized that the brand should play a key role in advocating for the value of architects and architecture to the community, but that the brand should not seek to engage all the Australian community, rather an identified subset most likely to positively respond to architecture and architectural services.

Bringing this work together is the following outline of Archicentre’s a future direction:

• Archicentre’s growth will be based on residential and commercial inspection, advice and design services;

• Archicentre will deliver its services by advocating the value of architect’s high level skills and abilities;

• Archicentre will position its architect’s network as its key point of difference in the marketplace;

• Archicentre will emphasise its ‘match-maker’ role-bringing together architects and the community;

• Archicentre’s brand will be recognised as a strong, independent source of trusted services and information;

• Archicentre’s marketing will target specific segments of the community to generate both commercial and advocacy benefits;

• Archicentre’s operations will align with the Institute’s operations and strategy;

• Archicentre will partner with the Institute to support small and emerging architectural practices;

• Archicentre will achieve a better than break-even result during the realignment phase and then deliver a sustainable financial annual surplus to the Institute in the medium term.

As always, the devil is in the detail and much work needs to be done to fully integrate the two organisations. Archicentre’s management team and the Institute’s Executive are committed to building on each other’s strengths to the benefit of Institute members around the country.

Queries about Archicentre can be directed to its General Manager, Cameron Frazer.