Competitive Strategy Study Of A&K Architects

At present,plenty of architecture design companies with various forms coexist in China’s architecture design industry,which is characterized by low concentration and high marketization.In recent years,with the application of BIM Technology,Prefabricated Building and other new technologies,as well as the promotion of Full Service Engineering Consultancy and Engineering Procurement Construction,large-scale architecture design companies,especially those with comprehensive qualifications,numerous talents and abundant funds will gain more competitive advantages.In the face of new environment,it is particularly important for small and medium-sized foreign-owned architecture design companies,like A&K Architects,to choose a proper Positioning,Segment Market and Competitive Strategy to compete with other competitors in the industry.Considering that A&K Architects doesn’t have a clear Competitive Strategy applicable to guide their daily competitive operation and A&K Architects is facing many difficulties in its current development mainly reflecting on stagnant business,limited customers& projects,high operation cost but low profit,this paper,from the perspective of Competitive Strategy,attempts to find out the most suitable Competitive Strategy for A&K Architects through this study and tries to extract its core competitiveness,and become a "small but excellent" design company in the field of architecture design.In terms of theoretical basis,this paper makes a literature review of Competitive Strategy,mainly introduces the definition of Competitive Strategy,the current research status of domestic and foreign scholars,and the theories for Industry Structure School,Core Competence School and Strategic Resource School as well as the Competitive status for Architecture design Companies in China.The selection of Competitive Strategy needs to combine the analysis of external and internal environment.This paper analyzes the external macro-environment,industry environment and competition environment A&K Architects facing by using the PEST Model,Michael Porter Five-force Model and the Key Successful Factors.From the analysis of A&K Architects’ external environment,it’s obvious that the development of China’s architecture design industry is currently facing many favorable policies and the development prospect is very good,but the competition is dramatically fierce.Plus,the society has new requirements for architecture design in the new era.In addition,this paper analyzes A&K Architects’ internal environment by introducing internal resources and company capabilities.In terms of internal resources,this paper mainly introduces from five major aspects,which includes human resources,design resources,technical resources,market resources,and brand advantages.As for company capabilities,four aspects like management ability,profitability,marketing ability,and business ability,are introduced.From the analysis of A&K Architects’ internal environment,it’s easy to find out the deficiencies in internal resources and company capabilities,which give ideas for strategy implementation and safeguard measures.Based on the internal and external environment analysis,this paper uses SWOT Model to further analyze A&K Architects’ strengths,weaknesses,opportunities and challenges.After the adoption possibility analysis of Porter’s three common Competitive strategies and QSPM analysis,it is concluded that A&K Architects should choose Focus Strategy.In order to make sure the successful implementation of Focus Strategy,five strategy implementation approaches and eight strategy implementation safeguard measures are introduced.Five strategy implementation approaches consist of Customer Focus,Service Optimization,Area Selection,Strengthen Brand and Improve Technical Skills.Eight strategy implementation safeguard measures mainly focus on measures in talent management,technical skills,friendsourcing,marketing management,employee motivation,brand building,finance management and strategy cooperation.Through the study from this paper,I hope it can provide some help for A&K Architects to choose specific Competitive Strategy to solve the development problems facing nowadays.I also hope this study can provide some positive references and lessons for other small and medium-sized architecture design companies.