Outsourcing services in the AEC industry
Offices have been progressively relying upon outsourcing their work to focus more on growing their clients’ portfolios and improving their productivity while avoiding staffing more employees or incurring more costs.
Hiring an architectural freelancer in the AEC industry offers a myriad of benefits that cater to the dynamic demands of modern projects. Unlike traditional employment structures, freelancers bring a flexible and specialized approach to architectural endeavors, allowing for tailored solutions to diverse design challenges.
With expertise honed through varied projects, freelancers offer fresh perspectives and innovative solutions, enriching the creative process.
Moreover, their adaptable work arrangements provide scalability, enabling firms to augment their teams based on project needs without the overhead costs associated with full-time employees.
Embracing the services of architectural freelancers enhances project efficiency and quality and fosters a culture of collaboration and knowledge exchange within the industry.
Outsourcing parts of your architecture firm’s work, such as drafting, modeling, and rendering, to an architectural freelancer will give you the freedom you need to attend to your current clients and find new ones.
As this blog post from Upwork says, nearly half (47%) of all freelancers provide knowledge or skilled services such as computer programming, marketing, IT, and business consulting. Architectural services are part of this growing list.
Advantages of outsourcing part of the daily work
The idea of partially outsourcing your work contemplates that you won’t need to worry about training people before they can start working on your projects. Consequently, the learning curve is also faster.
Outsourcing makes it easier to increase or reduce the size of the team seamlessly depending on the workload.
Outsourcing is also the best way to go if you still work in AutoCAD and have never implemented BIM at your firm. You can collaborate with a BIM specialist as a test run and afterward migrate smoothly. An architectural freelancer with robust experience in BIM will definitely help you and your firm make the transition smooth.
Outsourcing BIM/Revit work
Observing the growth of BIM in the AEC market, almost every architectural and construction firm is switching to BIM solutions to execute their building projects successfully.
Though many large-scale construction firms have already adopted and implemented BIM, several small and medium-scale firms still find it challenging due to a lack of knowledge and the skillset in BIM.
Nevertheless, it can be overcome by opting for the appropriate BIM Service Providers in the industry. For instance, outsourcing BIM Services can enable you to avail many benefits.
But you’d love to have certain aspects under control before working with someone outside the office. Here, we present some of them.
Seven aspects to consider
1. CLEAR SCOPE OF WORK
Ask the freelancer to make a proposal that includes the scope, delivery dates, and pricing to ensure you are both on the same page regarding collaboration. If you opt for a fixed-priced contract, set up the number of included revisions.
On the other hand, if you opt for an hourly contract, estimate a weekly workload and set up weekly hourly limits. Don’t assume things in advance; express your guidelines and needs as straightforwardly as possible.
2. SET UP MILESTONES
It’s a good practice to set up milestones for progress before the final deadline. That way, you can review work done with the consultant and confirm the right track so there are no last-minute surprises.
If this is your first time collaborating, I strongly suggest doing this. Consequently, you can check work beforehand and confirm that the architectural freelancer you hired is doing things the way you like.
3. COMMUNICATION CHANNELS
Maintain fluent communication with the consultant so there are no setbacks due to a lack of communication. Communication will help the project evolve consistently, and the architectural freelancer will be able to achieve due dates.
However, the in-house team and the freelancer you hire must keep communicating and working together to achieve the best result for every project they work on.
4. SAMPLE FILES, LIBRARIES AND TEMPLATES
Many architecture firms do things differently, so it’s crucial to be clear with graphic standards.
Make sure you share sample sets and your own template if you have it, and give the instructions to ensure the plans look as you wish and that the architectural freelancer you hired treats the files the way you would internally.
5. MARKUPS AND REVISIONS
If possible, use tools like Bluebeam for markups, where you can create online sessions and invite users to set task statuses as complete or highlight complete markups and keep track of work.
6. VIDEOCALLS
If a task is completed incorrectly by the freelancer, use the video call tool to have a closer approach to the freelancer and see what’s going on. Sometimes, it’s easier to take the time to have this conversation and solve inconveniences rather than trying to explain yourself through messages or emails.
7. GIVE FEEDBACK / COST-EFFECTIVENESS
It’s also critical to give feedback whenever you think it’s necessary, both for successful and not-so-successful results. Make sure you or someone in charge of the project -as the PM- have fluid communication with the person collaborating.
Conclusions about hiring an architectural freelancer
Successful organizations adopt the best practices for their industry. We’re talking about ensuring service quality, reliability, and adherence to strict security standards.
While this can be overwhelming for an architectural firm to address independently, my team and I can help by being a reliable extension of your in-house team. Furthermore, outsourcing is also a wise option to reduce operating costs and boost productivity.
You can expect loyalty, repeat business, and powerful user references when you give your customers a high-quality service. By hiring an architectural freelancer, you’ll be able to focus your in-house staff and yourself on other aspects of your business, such as building customer relationships and onboarding new prospects.
As you probably know, maintaining quality customer relationships is vital in this business since architectural projects usually take longer than those in other industries.
If you don’t want to recruit and train specialized BIM employees, which means time and money, or need to expand your team when your workload requires it and only for a short period, we are the solution you are looking for.
There is no internal bias about architecture; my team and I provide a fresh, objective point of view for your projects. Please feel free to check out our services before starting a conversation.
