GPA blog: The consistent flavour of coffee

I travel quite a lot in my job and whether you’re in America or Japan, the process is the same and the coffee tastes the same. You know what you’re getting, they’re consistent. Consistency, that’s something these franchise chains discovered.

It’s the same in the audiovisual field. Along with globalisation, clients often want a standardised environment. The CEO who travels around the world wants the same experience at all branches. The big advantage is that he no longer has to find out how things work, such as the set-up of a conference room with a range of audiovisual facilities. Based on the GPA, we advocate structuring these consistent methods.

One good example is the shop floor control concept of the GPA. Thanks to this concept, fitters and builders know exactly how to install the specific solution. This is, in a way, comparable to the manual and the famous key for furniture made by a famous Scandinavian chain, but in this case, it’s an automated online step-by-step plan.

The GPA, however, takes it a step further. We think along with our global clients. We also create a catalogue for them with standard solutions for their global offices. Predictability in terms of configuration and price is high on the agenda.  This prevents surprises upon completion.

The GPA partners are dedicated to consistency. All members abide by standard work processes, documentation and methods within the alliance.

But how do all the GPA partners learn to achieve that consistency? The GPA has a GPA University, where all partners are trained by means of videos on an online learning platform.

The GPA University can see at what level of consistency each partner is but also how many employees of the various partners have completed their training.  For instance, together with a global client, we have defined a number of room types that are the same in every branch of that client.  Whether someone has a meeting in Tokyo and then in New York, he doesn’t have to worry about a single thing, because he knows how the system works. And it means he has more than enough time to have a nice cup of coffee first.