AIA Reports Design Firms Have Room to Grow in Technology Adoption

WASHINGTON (Dec. 8, 2021) — A new report from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) is providing insights on how architecture firms view technology adoption and how firm culture impacts technology management.

The report, Technology, Culture, & the Future of the Architectural Firm, not only looks at how and why technology influences firm revenue but identifies key drivers of and barriers to adoption. Findings from the report show how small, medium, and large firms manage IT maintenance. Additional key findings include:

• Over half of firms are focused on growing profitability of projects by delivering them more efficiently, however, managing specifications is a particular pain point.
• Business development and marketing technologies remain underutilized in an industry focused on relationships and organic growth.
• Fewer than one in five architecture firms have customer relationship management (CRM) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, making it difficult to enable sales and business development (BD) efforts and orchestrate digital marketing.
• Architects at firms with strong capabilities for managing specification and project changes, and those with real-time insights into projects, are significantly more confident about their future success.

Technology, Culture, & the Future of the Architectural Firm was commissioned by the AIA Manufacturers Council, a group of companies dedicated to closing the knowledge gap between architects and the building products industry.

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