Annual CEE Best Brand in Practice Award 2001
All lined up and ready to go to Warsaw!
The PM Forum CEE created an award to recognize marketing-savvy professional service firms in Central & Eastern Europe.
Best Brand in Practice is the name of the award and 2001 was the inaugural year. The 1st prize went to APA Wojciechowski in Warsaw (see below). There were also three runners up (see photo above) who received awards (see photos below). And since three out of the four winners were from Poland, the first award ceremony was held in Warsaw.
Winners
APA Wojciechowski is a Polish architectural firm based in Warsaw and the winner of the first Best Brand in Practice award. The award is an original hand-crafted work of art (see photo). The base is a three dimensional PM Forum logo - a black pyramid - with the apex extending through a solid crystal engraved bowl. The award also includes a framed certificate, shown in photo.
Judges' comments: “APA Wojciechowski won the first annual Best Brand in Practice award in CEE because they clearly understand that their brand is best expressed in terms of clients and client needs, and have
the financial results to prove that the strategy is working for them.â€
1st Runners up
Gide Loyrette Nouel was the 1st Runner Up in the inaugural year, for the Best Brand in Practice award, and is the Warsaw practice of a French law firm in Poland.
The runners up awards are also a three dimensional representation of the PM Forum logo (see photo right). The base is the PM Forum logo (a black lacquer pyramid) which is similar to the apex portion of the 1st prize shown above.
But it has an engraved metal plaque rising from the center. And each of the runners up received a framed certificate as seen in the photo right.
Judges' comments: “Gide Loyrette Nouel was chosen as the 1st Runner Up because they have developed a clear Polish identity as part of a multi-national law firm.â€
2nd Runners up
CA IB was the 2nd Runner Up in the inaugural year of the Best Brand in Practice award. Like the other runners up, CA IB also received an award with the same design (see photo right).
CA IB includes the separate securities brokerage and advisory business, which is owned by Bank Austria, which is now a member of the HVB Group.
CA IB was also the only entry, from a professional service firm in the Czech Republic, to win an award for the Best Brand in Practice this first year.
Judges' comments: “CA IB was chosen as the 2nd Runner Up because they have developed a comprehensive marketing programme which is generating results.â€
3rd Runners up
Pentagram is a Polish professional service firm based in Poznan, Poland. And they were the 3rd Runner Up in the inaugural year for the Best Brand in Practice award.
Like the 1st Prize winner (APA Wojciechowski) Pentagram is also an architectural firm. Maybe this says something about Polish architects? These two sure seem dynamic.
Though they were only the 3rd Runner Up, Pentagram was the first to send in their entry. And, they were not the only professional firm from Poznan, to enter this first year's award.
Judges' comments: “Pentagram was chosen as the 3rd Runner Up because they have built an interesting business and provided us with direct feedback from some of their clients.â€
The International Recognition
In addition to receiving the awards at the official ceremony in Warsaw, APA Wojciechowski was also profiled in the November edition of professional marketing, which is the worldwide journal of marketing professional services published by the PM Forum in London.
This was a milestone, because it marked the first time ever, that a professional service firm in Central & Eastern Europe was profiled in this journal. Below is
the "practice profile" that appeared in the November 2001 edition, reprinted here with permission from professional marketing.
The problem-solvers
Ten years ago, it had just about no clients, no work and no portfolio to show potential clients. But the Warsaw architectural firm APA Wojciechowski earned US$1.5 million last year and has just won the PM Forum's 'Best Brand in Practice Award' for central and eastern Europe. Neasa MacErlean spoke to founder and managing partner Szymon Wojciechowski about the decade that changed the firm's fortunes.
In the old days, before the fall of Communism, the architects' firms which got the main commissions in Poland were all state-owned. APA Wojciechowski was essentially a private firm - but had a 'red cap' to qualify for state work. But when Communism fell, the old system fell and clients no longer had the money to pay. For instance, an important (and interesting) client had been the Polish Association of the Blind. But it relied for its money on charitable donations from the West - and these, of course, dried up in the confusion surrounding the fall of the Iron Curtain.
So in 1990 and 1991, Szymon Wojciechowski started to rebuild the firm. One of its first new clients was Amerbank, a joint venture between Polish individuals and the Bankers Trust. It was one of the first foreign banks back into Poland. APA Wojciechowski was asked to do some small bits of work for it which then grew into larger assignments. "We were practically the only group which had English-speaking capabilities and could use CAD [Computer-assisted design] techniques," says Wojciechowski. But the firm did not have its own computers at the start and had to use the computers of other consultants it worked with.
Perhaps this is the real clue to the firm's success - growing from just four personnel in 1994 to 33 in 2001. It has always been willing to learn. Wojciechowski, throughout the interview, keeps on returning to the same theme - the importance of learning from your mistakes: "We were a land of opportunity and inexperience then," he says. "We had to train our staff from the very beginning... Construction projects always create conflicts and problems. It is a very difficult trade. Everybody is making mistakes. Your approach to making mistakes is very important. You should not cut people's heads off: you should learn from mistakes. .... 'Clients must like you,' I am always telling my staff - because mistakes do happen." As he says, each building is really a prototype - so errors, misunderstandings and communication problems are almost bound to occur on each one.
But if good luck is sometimes the opposite of a mistake or bad luck, APA Wojciechowski certainly had its share of that too. On the Amerbank assignment, it got to know the lawyers involved - and these lawyers introduced APA Wojciechowski to some of the biggest organisations in the world. "We did a fit-out for the lawyers, and the lawyers served Coca Cola. So we did some work for them. Then we had a portfolio. We showed that to Pepsi Cola." APA Wojciechowski has now done over 15 assignments for both Pepsi Cola and Microsoft, worked in Moscow, Prague and Riga for Procter & Gamble and served a long list of Western giants - including Shell, Texaco, AIG, Whirlpool, Pillsbury, Sumitomo, Nestle and Hewlett Packard.
In one sense, it was struggling all along the way. "In Poland, architects are not trained to be managers," says Wojciechowski. "There are good managers but they are very expensive. So we had to learn to run the business ourselves. Very often we did it by making mistakes." But this ability to deal with setbacks and difficulties has been turned into an advantage. One point it made in its application for the Best Brand in Practice Award was that "our in-depth knowledge of the jungle of Polish regulations and bureaucracy differentiated us from Western practices". This knowledge has proved useful - for instance, in persuading the Polish authorities that Procter & Gamble should be allowed to use a modern sprinkler system in its buildings despite the fact that Polish regulations did not cater for such facilities.
The fact that APA Wojciechowski was in a tight spot in the early '90s seems to have made the firm think through issues from basic principles and come up with well-thought out and innovative solutions. For example, Wojciechowski has given almost unprecedented freedom to his staff in some respects. "People can come to the office when they want," he says. "It was very important for us to create freedom from the beginning. This is easy with architects because they love their work." So many of the staff do unusual hours - and many are in on Saturdays and Sundays.
Getting the commitment of staff is seen as absolutely vital by Wojciechowski - so vital that it precipated a change in the approach to marketing a year ago. "Previously our policy had been to be quiet and not to appear in the press. But we have started issuing press releases. They are the best marketing tool. It was important that people applying for jobs with us knew where they were going. And we wanted the people here to feel proud." Another self-taught marketing lesson has been to avoid advertising. "I cannot imagine that someone who has $10million to spend would look through newspapers for advertisements." And, similarly, Wojciechowski is not wildly enthusiastic about brochures: "We have a very simple one-page brochure. We will not invest money in this."
Far more important a marketing tool has been the attitude of the staff. "Quality of service is the key - and at an early stage." New customers are greeted with a very positive approach and a willingness to do work, even if the firm is not paid for a while. "Our philosophy is to do the job right. When a new client appears, we try to serve him until he is ready to pay. If the client has a problem, we want him to think: 'Call in those guys.' We are problem-solvers, not problem-givers." Wojciechowski is aware that many architects feel themselves to be artists first and foremost and can sometimes behave like prima donnas to their own clients. This is decidedly not the way that APA Wojciechowski works.
When APA Wojciechowski won the Best Brand in Practice Award, the judges said : "They clearly understand that their brand is best expressed in terms of clients and client needs, and have the financial results to prove that the strategy is working for them." Wojciechowski - then struggling with other difficulties - was glad of the award: "This is confirmation that our thinking can be appreciated and is correct."
But this is not a fairy tale about how a Polish architects firm made it from near rags to US$1.5 million. Wojciechowski is equally honest about the future. And, like so many other businesses, he has been hit by the September 11 atrocities - having to cancel a trip to the US then to visit clients and perhaps find some new ones. The Polish economic climate was also getting harsher: "The atmosphere is very different now. There is a slowdown in work. Hotel business is slowing. Normally in good circumstances, I have one application for a job here every two weeks to a month. Now I have three a day. We are one of the few architects with lots of work to do. With architects, it is either booming or it is zero. Companies cut out future investments when they are short of money."
Wojciechowski has, of course, various ideas about new ways of doing business. The firm has begun to work in the private individual market, for instance, building houses for individuals or families. And it will improve its service to corporate clients by the use of secure websites to take instructions and work on particular projects. But if the downturn is a bad one, then APA Wojciechowski will have to find other ways to generate business. Not easy - but the firm which survived the loss of just about all its clients ten years ago certainly has the right experience to get through a slowdown now.
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