Office furniture firm 'iscg' offers collaboration in new Ann Arbor space
The Royal Oak-based dealer of Haworth furniture is teaming up with Competing Values, a group of University of Michigan professors working as organizational effectiveness consultants to Fortune 100 companies, to create a place to highlight new trends in office design and a meeting place for clients and outside groups.
Competing Values invited Haworth to get involved, which then referred the group to iscg.
iscg CEO Mary Ann Lievois said the Ann Arbor location will help the company provide better service to longtime clients like Washtenaw County, and try to get more business from the university. But she emphasized that education on new workplace design concepts and opportunities to network with local architects, designers, facility managers and others is just as important, if not more so.
“The focus is not necessarily to sell something, although it ideally translates to sales,” she said. We are trying to be a knowledge base.”
“Because we’re relatively new in the area, the objective is to market our facility and grow our identity in Ann Arbor,” added Peggy Kmiec, the manager of the new iscg branch.
The new iscg space is on the second floor of the National City Bank building at the corner of South University and East University, overlooking the Diag. The space is broken up in to smaller areas that reflect the Competing Values Framework, which was developed by Competing Values managing partner Jeff DeGraff. The framework has four areas, which correspond to corporate cultures: collaborate, create, compete and control.
To showcase the “collaborate” concept, for example, iscg has set up an area full of movable tables with write-on surfaces ideal for brainstorming.
Lievois admitted that it’s risky to open a new location in a down economy, but Kmiec said building collaborative relationships said building relationships now will pay off when things pick up again.
“We need to be in a good position,” she said.
Lievois and Kmiec said there’s a growing recognition that corporate culture is affected by the design, layout and furnishing of workplaces, and that the coming generation of workers has different needs and expectations that their predecessors. That may mean more computer connectivity, more flexibility, or more transient spaces, such as “hotel” desks that can be used by any employee of a company.
Lievois said iscg, which has 21 employees and revenue of $16 million, hopes to establish itself as a resource for companies seeking to improve their efficiency.
“If we can partner with people and be a consultative company for them, they may refer us to someone else,” she said.
Hosting events in the space is also part of the plan, according to iscg officials and DeGraff. Lievois and Kmiec said they plan to have events for design, facilities management and other local business groups, while DeGraff said the space will provide a neutral site for consultations.
“There really is no Switzerland where everybody can meet” in Ann Arbor, he said.
University students also use the space as a lab for innovative design ideas, DeGraff added.
Betsy Wagner, director of interior design at Hobbs + Black, an Ann Arbor architecture, planning and interior design company, said the new iscg space will be a good resource for potential clients.
“It will be great to have a showroom to show clients different options,” said Wagner, who has already toured the space, which opened in August.
She added that while business has declined with the economy, many companies still recognize the importance of workplace culture.
“They definitely want to create a corporate culture, some more than others,” she said.
Freelance reporter Dan Meisler can be reached at danmeisler@gmail.com.