Flexibility as a business approach in both design and construction

Flexibility and adaptability have become not only important decision-making skills but a necessary approach in day-to-day business, both to meet the challenges of the market and maintain our competitiveness and to adapt to the needs of our clients, employees and society in general.

In the field of design and construction, taking a flexibility-based approach leads us to offer our services tailor-made to the brand. It also reminds us of the importance of putting the client at the centre of the strategy, rethinking the use of individual spaces or choosing different materials, for example.

What is business flexibility?

According to the Real Academia Española (RAE), the definition of flexible is “susceptible to change or variation according to circumstances or needs”. In the business environment, flexibility refers to a company’s ability to respond effectively to change.

In the short term, the company must be able to move quickly and efficiently and adapt quickly to circumstances. In the long term, the objective must be to adapt to the competitive environment and to ensure that innovation or development does not remain a one-off aspect but a permanent development. Eva Rimbau Gilabert, lecturer in people management at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), distinguishes four areas in which companies can seek and promote flexibility:

1. Strategic flexibility. The ability of the organisation, and more specifically of senior management, to respond quickly to changes in the environment.
2. Organisational or structural flexibility. This is the ability to reorganise or restructure the organisation, tasks, processes or internal communication channels to respond effectively and swiftly to change.
3. Productive flexibility. This refers to the ability to adapt production without incurring high costs, i.e. with current resources.
4. Labour flexibility. This refers to the management of teams and people within the same organisation.

An even more important aspect for the teacher is the perception of flexibility as a single approach.

Flexibility as a single approach to the design and construction of spaces

We live in a society that is very changeable, nothing is forever. Therefore, we must have the flexibility that allows for rapid transformation according to needs. As we have seen, the different types of flexibility are interconnected and acting on one of them implies revising all the others. Rimbau Gilabert gives us an example: “It is impossible to enter new markets (strategic flexibility) if there is no productive flexibility to adapt the design of the products and the quantity produced to the needs of that new market”. Adopting flexibility as an approach translates, in short, into greater efficiency and competitiveness in the management of the company and greater commitment and performance on the part of employees.

Adopting flexibility in the design and construction of spaces is also a paradigm shift. Grup Idea and Abessis can offer the services of our value chain separately or jointly, from the design to the final construction of the project – turnkey project. This change also implies flexibility at team level. It is essential that there is effective communication between technicians and project managers and that the client manager is the sole interlocutor with the brand.

Finally, we design and build spaces tailored to the users of the spaces. Our solutions are based on creating dynamic and comfortable spaces, easily adaptable, between aesthetics and functionality with the help of imagination. See all our work in the works section of our website.