The two most important elements to consider when bringing a fantastic fit out to life.

To bring your clients’ retail design project and vision to life, you need to understand their needs and meet their expectations. What is the best business-practice to follow to do this? What are the key considerations to examine or details to consider?

1. Understanding the clients brief

One of the most important elements of bringing a fantastic fit out to life is being sure that before your initial meeting your customer already has an idea of what they require from the final product and you have completely understood the parameters of the project. The client needs to fully comprehend what they would like for their business, the functionality of the design and the key motivating factors of their audience. It is then up to you to understand these ideas and create the best way to implement the client’s vision for the store and make it come to life.

To begin, understanding your client’s audience and their demographics is essential. Let’s take the example of restaurants, different restaurants attract different customers with different backgrounds and different needs and or wants. That is why the design and layout of these restaurants is imperative, you wouldn’t expect to see the same design at a Rashays restaurant as you would at a Mad Mex restaurant.  Firstly, they are two completely different restaurant styles with two completely different food service models, Rashays is an a la carte style restaurant while Mad Mex is an over-the-counter style model. They’re two different restaurants, targeted at different audiences and therefore it is necessary to build a solid and clear profile of your target audience and appeal to this target audience through the design of their retail space.

To practice good project management, it is imperative to understand your clients; who they are, what they do, what they like, what they hope to experience and what they are expecting is very important to clarify in the initial stage of the project management process.

2. Seamless project management through consistent communication

The basis of any project involving several parties is all about clear and frequent communication. Even if you have a clear idea of your client’s expectations, it is still essential to stay in touch with them by regular communication, to ensure a smooth, timely and seamless rollout of your project.

Communication comes not only by listening but also by reacting and adapting to feedback at every step of the way and accepting ideas, and suggestions from people at all levels. This allows every detail to be finetuned, but communication is also about holding frequent check-ins and meetings to make sure that everyone knows their roles, what their expected outcomes are and what the targets for the week are. The outlining of targets and timeframes are a huge factor in seamless project management and clear communication of these targets is imperative.

In conclusion It’s pivotal in any project to set clearly defined outcomes from the beginning and therefore it is very important to start with a clear objective and a detailed understanding of the clients’ requirements. Clear communication, time-management and prioritization must be performed continuously throughout the job. As it is essential to set out the foundations and create a strong understating of the project throughout. These two key elements are imperative when bringing a seamless fit-out to life and McCredie prides itself on consistent communication and a thorough understanding of a client’s brief prior to the start of any project.