Forward Space
Crafting a business plan for an W/MBE owned, union aligned furniture installation company
2022
Business Design
About
Forward Space is the largest Steelcase furniture dealership in Chicago and Milwaukee. A woman-owned business, they supply furniture to a range of clients from offices, to educational and medical institutions.
Once the furniture is sold, it is delivered to site and installed by a separate installation company. While Forward Space has a few of their own installers, they are a non-union company, while most of the buildings in Chicago employ only union labor, which means they have to subcontract the work to a different firm.
The owners of Forward Space want to explore the idea of starting a new, minority owned union installation firm, to ensure that their furniture is installed correctly, while also helping their clients meet their ESG and diversity goals.
The goal of the project was to create a plan for the formation of the new company.
This involved studying the installation process, understanding the attributes of a good installation company, understanding the process of hiring union labor, and for getting an MBE certification.
Primary Research
20 Internal Interviews
49 Survey Responses
04 Warehouse Visits
04 Install Company Interviews
03 Contextual Inquiries
02 Dealer Interviews
Secondary Research
Environmental Scan
W/MBE Certifications
Union Agreement Scan
Scan of Forward Space Financials
Scan of RFPs
Hardware and Software Scan
Methodology
Who all are involved in the Installation Process?
ERAF Diagram
Framework
Question
What does the competitive landscape look like?
Competitor 2x2
What will affect the space in years to come?
Environmental Scan
Kano Model
What are the traits of a good Furniture Installation Company?
What is the demand for W/MBEs in this Industry?
RFP Scan
What are the different certifications available for W/MBEs?
Certifications List
What would the new company look like?
How would it function?
Org Chart and Process Map
Who all are involved in the Installation Process?
ERAF Diagram
An ERAF Diagram charts out the different entities, the relationships between them, the attributes of each entity, and the flow of goods or information between them.
This helps understand the overall process and the way goods and information travels through the system.
What does the competitive landscape look like?
Competitor 2x2
In order to find the who the new company will actually compete with, we sorted all the current installation companies into a 2x2 matrix, with the X-axis dividing Union vs Non-Union, and the Y-axis dividing W/MBE Certified and non W/MBE companies.
What will affect the space in years to come?
Environmental Scan
This framework is about analyzing trends across 6 categories:
Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental.
We look at what will affect the space of installation in the near future from the lens of these 6 categories.
In order to ensure thoroughness, we looked at a range of sources, from news articles, to trend reports and academic journals and even social media.
What are the traits of a good Furniture Installation Company?
Kano Model
The Kano model is a framework used to categorize customer needs and satisfaction based on product features. It helps identify which features will delight, satisfy, or disappoint customers, improving product development and prioritization.
What is the demand for W/MBEs in this Industry?
RFP Scan
Taking a sample of about 20 RFPs that Forward Space has received over the past year, we looked at how many of them include a section for minority spend, and what their requirements are.
What are the different certifications available for W/MBEs?
Certifications List
A list of certifications available to W/M/VBE’s, Small businesses as well as other useful organizations and tools for these companies.
What would the new company look like? How would it function?
Org Chart and Process Map
A list of certifications available to W/M/VBE’s, Small businesses as well as other useful organizations and tools for these companies.
Forward Space Punch List
As we went about the research process, we found a number of areas that Forward Space could improve as well as a number of best practices that Forward Space could adopt. We added these to a “Punch List”* for the Forward Space team, with a list of suggestions and an action plan to fix these issues.
*Punch List is an industry term for a list of problems that need to be fixed in order for the project to be declared completed.
