Tobias Guggenheimer, whose architectural firm is in Dobbs Ferry, has brought a new global concept to outsourcing, allowing a Filipino mirror office to do work in the midnight hours.
Though Guggenheimer had progressed as a notable architectural force in Westchester, his firm had garnered a reputation for doing great work, but not very fast.
“My firm was very stable, we have a good reputation in the market that commissions work in the high-end residential, but we found ourselves on the operational side getting into trouble,” said Guggenheimer.
Guggenheimer said that many clients come to an architect with an unrealistic view of how long a project will take and are only excited to have it unfold very quickly.
“Also the longer the project takes to design and construct, often there will be carrying costs that they have to absorb without getting any benefit from it,” said Guggenheimer. “The shorter the process takes them then ultimately the less money it costs.”
Guggenheimer was left with clients who wanted good work but were not understanding of the time-to-quality ratio.
“Architects fees are just in a complete different league than other professions relative to the effort that”™s put in,” said Guggenheimer. “The reason for that is we”™re basically in the business of producing prototypes.”
Guggenheimer, whose wife Yasmine is from the Philippines, began searching for ways in which to supplement his work.
“The easy solution would be to hire four or five more architects and then we would solve the timing issue,” said Guggenheimer. “Unfortunately, I would have also gone bankrupt.”
Guggenheimer began to research the concept of outsourcing and found that Eastern companies based in China or India would specialize in a particular field and then sell their services for an hourly rate.
“We tried that and it was an absolute failure,” said Guggenheimer. “There was no continuity.”
After a few experiences of trial and error, Guggenheimer began speaking with professionals among his wife”™s family and developed a concept where the firm would hire an office of architects in the Philippines on a full-time basis as the sole source of work.
We found young architects who were eager to work and set up a company in the Philippines, said Guggenheimer. We communicated with them on a daily basis and created an office just like ours there. That experiment was so successful that we realized that the same kind of structure could benefit people in many fields that rely on a particular expertise that can be worked on remotely.”
Guggenheimer founded the concept with his firm four years ago and helped to apply the Global Reach Design Inc. business model last year.
“Rather than provide a service in a particular field what we do is provide specialized labor in any field,” said Guggenheimer. “A client of global reach also communicates directly with that staff person. It”™s as close to hiring your own person as you can possibly get.”
According to Guggenheimer, the Global Reach model has to this day been applied to many industries including Web design, Web site management, rendering, animation, architecture, graphic design, engineering, product design, medical transcription, telemarketing, and bookkeeping.
Guggenheimer said generally the savings are somewhere between 50 percent and 60 percent versus the amount that would be spent on a new full-time employee.
“Over and above the money, the phone doesn”™t ring over there so people are devoted to their tasks,” said Guggenheimer.
“Additionally your whole works cycle speeds up because of the time difference, typically a 12 hour time difference. You go through two work cycles in one day. When you get up in the morning there”™s eight hours of work done on that same project.”
Guggenheimer said Global Reach contracts for six-month periods of time, which allows flexibility and the ability to increase or decrease the Philippines staff.
“When I looked at this concept it wasn”™t so I could get rid of employees here, said Guggenheimer. “It was so I could save my company and therefore save our jobs.”
Guggenheimer said an additional advantage to Global Reach being based in the Philippines, rather than another popular outsourcing country, is that the educational system is based on the American model and is very similar to Western culture.
