Second root problem #1: We don’t know how to sell (our) services
Selling is closely related to enabling decisions, but it emphasizes especially the early project stages and change orders. To sell additional BIM services we need to understand the client's needs.
Planning services are sold in many countries as a percentage of the building costs. For many years, the minimal and maximal fees were fixed by laws or a strong lobby xxx Germany, Switzerland, and Austria xxx. Moreover, what has to be done in which phase was also defined. Therefore, planners did not have to sell their services, find differentiators, or tailor their services to the client’s needs. This protected market led to incompetency in selling. Many planners see selling even as “evil.” When doing additional education on digital transformation, I remember most of the participants worked in construction, but one guy was the product manager for a BIM tool. Many participants looked down, and when he presented, the comment was: “Ah, he sells again!” Talking to different people in other countries, they confirm the same bias towards selling.
Now, with the introduction of BIM or any other digital automated process, this mindset creates huge issues. I remember a call with a client rep friend of mine. He was complaining about an architect who wanted to have 1 million Swiss francs more for working with BIM - without saying what their service would be. Unfortunately, the architect already had the contract, and the wish to work with BIM was communicated later. That made the architect’s base for negotiations quite strong, but led to a lot of bad blood even before the project started. My friend needed to moderate between the client and the service provider.
We need to understand better the client's needs to sell additional services based on BIM. On a high level, there are only three valid reasons for clients to ask for BIM:
The first is when the client has quality assurance processes built on BIM data. It starts with a client who does not understand plans and needs a virtual tour to understand the design, and it ends with automated quality assurance processes across multiple projects. In a nutshell, we could say a professional client should know the requirements for their quality assurance and should be able to order them. To do this, the (professional) client needs a high level of standardization in terms of geometric representation and data quality (Entities, Attributes, and Values). More about this topic of standardization in a later chapter).
A private, one-time builder does not have to know how to order BIM, and when it's the consultant's job to propose the best solution that enables the client to make decisions! BIM can become a differentiator for the consultant by providing a positive experience for the client!
Just think about people who recently built their homes. How often did you hear them saying: “The last year planning and building was a pleasure?”
Another friend of mine, a production manager with a very technical and hands-on background, told me about his experience when renovating his house. Due to COVID-19, he did not find a construction manager and did all the on-site management by himself. He managed to do everything in two months but lost 5 kilos. Moreover, he hurt his elbow and still struggles with the aftereffects.
The second reason is handing structured data over to Facility Management (FM) or Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) tools, e.g., SAP. On purpose, I talk about data and not models because there is often no use case for the 3-dimensional model.
This use-case of data handover depends on the type of client:
The one-time client for a single-family house
This type of client does not have any form of professional facility management. It can be important to have the relevant information, e.g., whom to call to solve a problem. Having this information in a BIM does not necessarily help because they won't be able to use the BIM tools. Therefore, there is no perceived value for their nonexistent/rudimentary FM.
If the project team chooses to do BIM anyway, the reasons are easier coordination between the trades and better communication with the non-professional client. It is a competitive advantage but not necessarily something the client will pay extra on top of the normal fees.
The one-time client who builds a multifamily building as an investment
This type of client usually employs professional facility management for tenant management and cleaning services. Some information from a BIM could be usable for the professional FM provider. However, most providers have processes in place based on rudimentary plan data. I recommend involving the dedicated FM provider early in the building projects and asking them to formulate their BIM requirements. Currently, most of the time, there won't be any.
Another possible reason could be that the resale value could increase if the building is better documented. A bet into the future. For the team, it means they need to polish their sales skills to get more money for the FM-BIM (often called LOD 500 BIM).
The professional client who develops and sells projects
For them, a well-documented building could be of value, especially when they want to sell to an international portfolio that has to fulfill the taxonomy criteria. Here, we must examine how the market develops and adapts to taxonomy.
Again, it's a bet into the future.
The professional client who keeps the building
For them, a smooth handover of data is a big value. But this does not mean it has to be BIM. The FM providers I know usually have workflows based on 1:200 plans and manage most information connected to the spaces or systems. The information is usually kept in 10 - 20 attributes of a database and a linked plan archive. As long as these FM providers:
Don't have any processes in place to extract the information from a BIM, the handover could be a structured Excel file and CAD plans as well.
Don't have processes in place to change the BIM whenever they do some renovation.
Don't have use cases there a 3D model helps in FM (I don't believe the story of the housekeeper who looks at the BIM to know which ladder to bring.) xxx
The professional client of complex industry projects with many changes.
A BIM model could have value for these clients as long as they have the processes to adapt the FM model according to the changes. Unfortunately, most of them are already overwhelmed by adapting the 2D-based documentation. Adapting a 3D/BIM has an even higher level of complexity. The way would be to build up their standards and only hire planners who could follow their requirements - sometimes, it would even call for a closed BIM solution to ensure a smooth integration. Considering new business models, the topic of the book's last chapter, this could be an opportunity to sell services with recurring revenue.
So, in a Nutshell. The one-time house owner won’t care about BIM for FM, but the professional-client should know exactly what they need and should be able to describe the data requirements in detail.
The third reason is the most controversial. It's to nudge the market in another direction. Nudging the market is especially relevant for clients who build more than once. Without openly communicating it, nudging the market towards effectivity and efficiency was the main driver for governmental BIM initiatives. The aforementioned client, with the 1 Mio. additional fee for BIM, builds many projects, and often encounters the same coordination mistakes between planning and construction sites. Therefore, they intervened and asked for BIM. As a client rep, my friend was trapped between the planner who wanted money and the client who asked for a “how” - who ordered a way of working instead of a “what” - a result.
This example shows well that, on the one hand, planners don't know how to sell their services, and on the other hand, clients don't know how to order.
Read more about this in part 2.