Summary –
This week started off slow and I almost thought that I was not going to have anything to work on. I worked on little miscellaneous things Monday. Tuesday, it was slow but we spent half the day volunteering and hanging drywall with KDM (Kingdom Design Ministries). It picked up on Wednesday when I attended a bid opening for a library in a city about an hour away. I had worked on helping pick out some furniture for this bid so it was exciting to attend the opening. A bid opening is when a bid is put out for anyone to bid on and then there is an opening held where the client, architect and in this case, the mayor, come together and open the bids in front of the dealers that submitted. I attended this with the associate in training at CBI. We were the only two to work on the bid. Unfortunately, when they opened the bids and read the final pricing we were not the lowest bidder. In most cases this means that we probably won’t win the bid, but for this one they contacted us and said they would love to work with us if we could get the pricing a little lower. I then started working on my very own bid by myself for a private school down in Chattanooga. I spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday working on this bid. I laid out floor plans and came up with solutions and created solution pages. I also figured out pricing and quoted the products. I sent everything to our project manager in Chattanooga and she sent the stuff to the client; hopefully we will win this bid.
Focus –
CBI has a sales department separate from the project managers. These are the people that help market the company by networking with new clients and organizing events. CBI does a lot of charity work as well which also helps market the company and get the name out there. The company gets their business mainly from A&D firms that are in need of some help when it comes to furniture. There are occasions when CBI gets their business from clients directly. This is usually the case in smaller projects like reconfigurations or if they are just looking for a few new pieces of furniture. All accounting is handled in house but by the Charlotte office, which is the CBI headquarters.
Here are some of the pictures of projects that CBI uses to market their services on their website.
Corporate
Higher Education
Automotive
Non Profit
Meet –
Meet Renee. She is the Sales Consultant for our CBI Knoxville office. She is the one that networks for the Knoxville office and deals with clients. She also organizes events and helps draw in business. Having just one sales consultant, she stays busy with meetings, breakfasts, lunches, and A&D events. Without Renee we would not have the projects that we do. She is also a sweet, kindhearted person always willing to help out with anything she can. Next week she is actually headed off to Haiti to do some nonprofit work for some people there.
This will be the community Blog for IDS 420 Summer 2016. Students will post their responses to weekly Journal Assignments here as well as view posts/comments from other participants.
No Comments
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.