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Getting any kind of building project across the finishing line is a team effort. Some of that team will be made up of in-house colleagues, but many of them will be external suppliers.

And if you're an M&E consultant or building contractor involved in the planning stages of a large project you'll find yourself faced with sourcing and coordinating an entire army of suppliers.

Among the many decisions to be made on individual suppliers, there's also a broader ideological decision to make on how you approach the task. Do you look for specialists with high-level niche expertise, or do you go for a generalist with the convenience of all services under one roof?

As with any choice between two ends of a spectrum, there are benefits and trade-offs with each option...and there's always Secret Option C, finding a solution somewhere between the two.

Selecting niche specialists

One approach you could take is to find the best specialist experts for each skillset you need, and then narrow down your options even further by looking at a subset of those subject-matter experts who specialise in the sector or industry you're building for.

In this scenario, rather than looking for a supplier who can do audio and lighting integration you would go for one supplier who does nothing but audio, another who does nothing but lighting, and third to integrate both sets of technologies with each other. This could lead you to a lot of sole traders and SMBs focused on a small market niche.

This, in theory, would give you the best of the best in every area. It could also create quite a headache. For every supplier you onboard you'll need to brief them, add them to your financial and CRM systems, build a relationship with them, and manage their work throughout the duration of the project. Additionally, any delays by one could delay the others, and therefore create a domino effect delaying the project as a whole.

There are things you can do to reduce the burden - like using a Project Brief Template you can share with all suppliers, or investing in a supplier management software platform  - but ultimately you'll need to accept that managing a large number of specialist suppliers will take time and energy.

Something also worth considering is that smaller specialist companies may not have as robust project management and customer support processes as their larger competitors. Their ability of provide nationwide support for any future maintenance requirements should also be considered if you are working with a multi-site chain of venues.

Single-supplier strategy

The opposite of this approach is to look for a single supplier that can provide as many different services as possible. In this scenario, more focus is placed on breadth rather than depth of expertise.

Consolidating into as few suppliers as possible has an obvious benefit of convenience, as well as time saved on vetting and building relationships with perhaps dozens of individual niche suppliers. Much of the project minutiae will be handled in-house by the supplier, rather than by you and your team.

The difficulty of creating good supplier relationships is exacerbated when working with multiple subcontractors at once. When you have different suppliers for network cabling, access and security control, digital signage and AV integration it can quickly become a lot to manage.

Having one supplier managing multiple aspects of the build means their internal teams should be able to react and adapt more quickly to unexpected changes.

However, this communication convenience comes at a cost. For example, when expanding the scope of services provided it's difficult to provide the same level of expertise as more narrowly focused suppliers.

There's also an increase in risk that comes with having all your supplier eggs in one basket. A breakdown in communication or a supply chain issue with your single supplier could cause much bigger problems than similar issues occurring with one of many suppliers.

Multi-service technology integrators

With Options A and B both presenting undesirable trade-offs, this brings us to Secret Option C. Consolidate into fewer suppliers without losing the heightened quality and attention to detail you get with specialists.

This is where technology integrators come into their own. Finding a supplier who specialises in integrating a set of technologies to work as a cohesive system gives you the benefit of consolidating several suppliers into one, but without losing the higher level of expertise that comes with a specialist company. These kinds of technology integrators often started as niche specialists and then branched out into a set of interconnected services.

Our team at Hutchison Technologies, for example, started off as specialists in networking and telecoms solutions, then over a period of 30 years developed our expertise in audio-visual technologies, digital signage, access control, and automation that allowed these all to work in sync. Our technology integration partnership with David Lloyd shows how we can integrate technologies across many different spaces in one building - receptions, car parks, offices, cafes, gyms, event spaces, and immersive fitness studios.

As with any supplier relationship, you'll still want to invest time creating a good supplier brief, but because a multi-service integrator will be working across a wider part of the building project they will tend to be more invested in the overall impression and experience you're trying to create.

How we work with our clients

Many of our Technical and R&D colleagues would consider themselves very much in the niche specialists camp. However, with over a hundred people working at Hutchison Technologies - including a nationwide pool of engineers, and dedicated project management and customer support teams - we group all these specialists together to offer a truly multi-service technology integration service.

We can't replace all your other suppliers - nor would we want to, We're sure they're a lovely bunch - but we have a track record of success in providing a single point-of-contact for all AV, lighting, automation, digital signage, access control, networking and telecoms integrations.

With over 30 years of experience, we're trusted partners to leading brands in the Health & Fitness, Corporate, Retail and Hospitality sectors, as well as partnering with architects and M&E consultants to help them deliver successfully for their own clients.

If you think one of your projects could benefit from some multi-service technology integration support, speak to a member of our team about how we can help.