by Tracy F. Ostroff
Associate Editor

The federal government says it is eager to help make the connections that will expand business opportunities for architecture practices. The Commerce Department’s U.S. Commercial Service has officers who are working worldwide to link small and midsize firms, including architects, to specific projects and develop ongoing relationships that can bear fruit as work becomes available.

Commercial Service officers operate much like their Foreign Service counterparts: They “grease the wheels,” as one official explains, in the interest of American companies that pursue overseas ventures. In the U.S., teams of specialists in architecture, engineering, and the construction trade provide services including consulting and advocacy, customized market research, and trade-event promotion and coordination. The government provides these services free or at-cost. Once focused mainly on exporting goods, the Commercial Service is increasingly turning its efforts and resources to promoting the private services sector, which for architecture, engineering, and other technical services amounted to nearly $500 million in 2001, according to Commerce Department figures.

Matchmaking and bringing parties together
The activities work particularly well for niche firms, which can break into markets because they have particularly specialized services. At the AIA national convention in San Diego this May, for example, an export assistance official was able to make a connection between a Saudi Arabian client seeking amusement-park-design services and a practice that could provide those services.

But “not all services are created equal,” says Todd B. Avery, an international trade specialist at the Northern Virginia Export Assistance Center. He says he and his colleagues are continually learning about the different needs of the varying sectors they assist. Avery says their strengths lie in the vast network of associates they have in the U.S. embassies abroad and in their network of more than 100 specialists in this country. These officers provide specialized market research reports, trade leads, and information about firms abroad that are looking for U.S. partners. The Commercial Service has also helped set up videoconferences and offers trade missions, particularly in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics, as well as in Shanghai and Hong Kong. These missions, Avery and his colleagues say, provide opportunities for U.S. firms to present their capabilities to government and other organizations as well as to private firms that want the expertise and services of an American firm on their team.

Avery also urges practitioners who are already in the market and who are willing to travel or already have plans to be abroad to get in touch with the commercial officers overseas to set up a day of meetings, particularly if they are pursuing particular projects or contacts. The costs vary from about $250 to $950 dollars per day. The Commercial Service also serves as a sounding board, checking companies and projects to ensure that they are legitimate. It can scope out the details of a particular project and play matchmaker when opportunities and services intersect. They are quick to point out that they keep a company’s plans for and actions in the market confidential and can provide additional services to companies that are reticent about sharing in group activities.

Value added
Before approaching the U.S. Commercial Service, Stephan Crawford, director of San Francisco U.S. Export Assistance Center, advises that firms be able to articulate what their “sense of what their value-added is,” meaning “what differentiates them from other companies, what they would be bringing to a certain market overseas, and why a foreign entity would want to work with them versus a local architecture firm.” He says this explanation is particularly important to the commercial service because it helps the agency “pinpoint resources and make connections.”

Firms should gauge their level of commitment and ability to follow through, Crawford notes, because dedication to the effort is key to success. “However, if a company comes to us and they just know ‘that we’re intrigued about doing international, we’ve never done it, this is what we do, this is what we think our value is,’ then we would begin the process of helping them pinpoint where they should be looking, where they should be spending their effort, and also taking a look at the firm, what kind of critical mass it has.”

All the Commerce Department officials stress the importance of being a results-oriented agency. The success of the U.S. Commercial Service, which is congressionally funded, is measured by the numbers of business deals they close, Todd Avery says. “We’re motivated to make sure the companies we work with have both the resources and the commitment to actually follow through and do it,” Crawford agrees. “So if a company is coming to us and we get the sense they’re not committed to it or they don’t have the resources, we’ll simply tell them that, and ask them to go though an internal process of self-evaluation to determine whether they really want to pursue international work. At that point, we’ll also help them identify what some of the issues are, what the risks are, and give them the information they need to make a decision internally” of how they want to proceed, Crawford adds. They put a premium on customer feedback, getting qualitative and quantitative feedback through customer satisfaction surveys typically sent 30 days after the services are provided.

Greasing the wheels
Tony Michalski, a trade specialist in Newport Beach, Calif., says he and his colleagues are taking measures to keep up with the industry, incorporate feedback they have received from the services industry, and pass it along to the embassy officials that provide the country-specific market research and data. His office is working to build a set of best practices and is engaging in more training to understand the sector better. He and his colleagues across the country are also working with local AIA chapters to set up video conferences with representatives of overseas governments and firms and make connections at industry trade shows, such as the booth the agency had at the AIA national convention in San Diego.

Commerce Department officials say these services lower the risk and reduce the amount of legwork firms must do before entering an overseas venture at very low costs. Currently, Commercial Service is looking to build links for services companies in Iraq and Afghanistan and has created a task force on each country area. The agency advises firms seeking work in these areas to visit the Commerce Department Web site for more information.

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