The Clemson project, in general, illustrates what McIntosh sees as an advantage — not a disadvantage — for a consultant born out of a design-build firm. BrightTree offered the client a more hands-on and comprehensive approach and more value than the traditional consultant approach — “from end to end, planning and programming, sitting down and discussing the vision for the space,” he says. “Construction documents, design documents, systems documents. We did the entire bid process, hired an integrator and two or three months of project management of the entire project.”
“It’s difficult to imagine a move that’s more controversial in the AV integration industry than an integrator crossing the line from design-build to consultant. This is the type of thing that makes everyone uncomfortable and therefore we seldom discuss it publicly.”—Chuck Wilson, NSCA
Another reason design-build integrators aren’t considered suitable as consultants is that independent consultants simply aren’t limited to what products they sell — they don’t sell products. That means they can look far and wide to find the ideal products for the customer’s unique needs, and that the search isn’t based on how easy or difficult those product are to acquire.
“I think it’s just backwards thinking of the days of you needed to be independent because only certain companies could sell certain products,” McIntosh says. “It’s not that way anymore. If I want to sell any piece, any manufacturer, I’ll call them today, I’ll get dealer pricing and I can sell it the same day.”
Why Aren’t More Doing It?
SMG’s success so far in rolling a consulting group into its design-build firm begs the question: Will it work for other design-build integrators?
Whispers in the industry indicate that many probably are, but aren’t promoting it or even talking about it. There are rumors of scenarios in which a design-build integration firm spends the time consulting with a customer and gathering system design information, but ultimately can’t agree upon a project price. That design-build firm then offers to sell the design for them to bid out and walk away. Does it happen? Probably.
McIntosh doesn’t think it’s common. “From speaking to fellow C-levels at the CI Summit I think the majority of AV integration firms do not offer design-only consultation services,” he says.
Even if some firms do sell designs through the back door, it’s much different than how BrightTree has committed to partnering with architects as their technology consultant, McIntosh adds. While design-build integration firms may have good system designers in place, most probably don’t have personnel in place to actually work with the architectural community.
That’s what, in SMG’s view, sets BrightTree apart from most integration firms’ design teams.
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“We are responsible for completing preliminary visioning, schematic design, design development and construction documents for the architect,” McIntosh says. “In these phases, we’re not discussing technology but we’re interested in the 10,000-foot view, such as room functionality, size of the space, workflow and understanding the clients’ goals.”
SMG offers content creation services to its customers, something very few traditional AV integrators have offered. “We see content creation as a major scope gap in the standard AV consultation and design-build model,” McIntosh says.
Meanwhile, SMG expresses tremendous respect for the role of consultant, including competitors. “A major difference between consulting firms and design-build firms is that consulting firms require the expertise and experience to be able to lead a client and their design team to think about current technology trends and where the industry is going,” Vargo says. “It’s a multi-day discussion where we dive deep into the nuances of the industry. We look at studies, develop research and explore like-minded firms in order to help develop the clients’ goals.”
Respect or not, most independent consultants will consider what SMG is doing with BrightTree to be disingenuous and misguided. They can take solace in BrightTree being a relatively small potato with a projected $1.2 million in consulting revenue and only two locations (SMG has a second office in Columbus, Ohio), but that may change.
SMG is focused on expanding its geographic footprint and is in a unique recruiting position. Prior to founding SMG with McIn-osh, Carpenter served in the U.S. Army. “With his service to our country, [SMG] recently became certified as a service-disabled veteran-owned small business,” McIntosh says. “With this distinction, we’ll being to focus our expansion into the D.C.-Maryland area where SDVOSB is most valued. By being able to provide our design-build services in new cities, we will open ourselves up to additional opportunities and be better able to support geographically dispersed firms.”
Of course, geographic expansion — and this article — will also open up SMG and BrightTree to scrutiny of its controversial decision to add a consulting wing to its design-build integration firm. McIntosh isn’t concerned about it and points out that SMG isn’t doing it in the shadows. “We are proud that our design wing was born out of a design-build firm.
We are transparent about it because we believe it’s a strength,” he says, smiling.
