Unique legacy and new organisational structure. In its natural evolution, a company is born, grows and, years later, passes into the hands of new generations. Change in order to remain the same. The new generations serve to break down barriers and help the company to survive by adapting to the time in which it exists and to the constant changes in society.

This year, Alejandro Mora, Rodolfo Pérez-Martos and Miquel Àngel Julià Hierro have become the new management team of Grup Idea, taking over the legacy left by the current directors and founders of the company, Lluís Saiz and Artur Ortiz.

In this interview we have the opportunity to get to know Alejandro and Rodolfo better and to hear about the day-to-day running of the company. We will see that the new mission, vision and values for the company remain the same. We will also get to know the main purpose and objective guiding this new management.

 

• How did you start at Grup Idea and how have you evolved professionally?

(AM) I started as an engineer calculating installations and drawing up security plans for bank offices. I had just graduated and started at Grup Idea with another engineer who left a few months later. When we joined, the two engineers who had already been there left a week later and we had to do everything we could with the projects they had left. Those were different times. In 1999, no mobile phones, with fax…

In my career I have held various positions such as Head of Engineering, Project Management of the Retail and International areas, Director of the Mexico office and, currently, CEO of the company. This has allowed me to see the functioning of the company from multiple positions and with multiple visions and needs, which helps me in my current job and position.

(RPM) I started at Grup Idea as a student when I was at the end of my degree so that I could get started in the working world and see how real work developed. From the beginning, they had complete confidence in me, starting my experience as a project assistant. I did my PFC at the same time as my office work.

Later, as time went by and with the experience gained, the responsibility increased and I became Team Manager, Project Manager, Client Manager, Architectural Manager and up to the present day. It can be said that I have gone through all the stages in which an Architect can develop within an architecture-engineering office.

 

• How has the internal organisation of the company been restructured and what are you looking for with this change?

(AM) The founding partners of the company have stepped aside and allowed us to bring up the second generation and, in turn, this has allowed us to bring up a third generation of workers to management positions giving continuity to the company with the same philosophy, which is what we are looking for.

(RPM) The founding partners have promoted a generational development with organic growth that allows the company to continue with the strength and enthusiasm it has always had. To this end, the generations of consolidated technicians have been promoted to management and management positions in the company and the younger technicians have been promoted to positions of greater responsibility.

 

• You are respectively an engineer and an architect, do your different backgrounds complement each other? You are in turn the reflection of a large part of the technical team that makes up Grup Idea. Are they different ways of thinking but with common objectives?

(RPM) The founding partners were already architects and technical architects respectively, with different views on the same subject. It is the same with us now, but being different means being complementary and being more competent and efficient. One of the strengths of Grup Idea is the different profiles that make up our team. The different points of view depending on the training of each person enriches the work, creates debate and opens up the point of view. This allows a greater and better analysis of things for better decision making. The client appreciates this.

(AM) Our different backgrounds are perfectly complementary, because although they are antagonistic in many ways, this is what makes decision-making richer, as things are seen from different points of view, which allows us to reach common objectives with much greater certainty.

 

• Looking at it from the inside, how do you assess the evolution of Grup Idea in these more than 25 years?

(RPM) We can say that the evolution of Grup Idea has been incredible, going from being a small architecture firm in its beginnings to being a benchmark in its sector today. The company has been able to bounce back in times of difficulty and remain calm in times of success.

(AM) An exemplary evolution in many aspects. It is difficult to maintain a company like this for 25 years, although it is a cliché, the difficult thing is not to grow but to maintain it, and these 25 years are proof of that. In this time there have been better and worse times, but we have always been able to make the right decisions to ensure the company’s continuity and independence.

 

“The different points of view depending on the training of each person enriches the work, creates debate and opens up the point of view.” Rodolfo Pérez-Martos

 

• Grup Idea was one of the first to use the concept of Corporate Architecture. Is this specialisation still appreciable and different from the competition?

(AM) Grup Idea works exclusively for brands, so the concept of Corporate Architecture is still very much alive today, as it is part of our DNA. There are firms that are trying to dedicate themselves to corporate architecture, but there are very few of us exclusively, as it is something very specialised and different from traditional architecture.

(RPM) Grup Idea is Corporate Architecture, that’s how it was born and that’s how we have grown and learned together with our clients until we got here. Many firms are already dedicated to architecture and engineering but few are as specialised as we are. Our experience, the quality of our work and our flexibility have earned us the trust of our clients.

 

• Grup Idea can work on the entire value chain of a project from the initial design to its final execution: “Imagine, Design & Build”. What do these three concepts convey?

(AM) It is the work we have been doing for more than 25 years. We have always adapted to the client’s needs but it has always been under the umbrella of these three words, the services and project phases that they encompass.

(RPM) These concepts mean that we put ourselves in the client’s shoes and offer them everything they need, totally or partially, to cover their needs. We can enter into any of the phases of a project. We adapt to what the client needs. Our job is to give you peace of mind.

 

• How do you organise the work teams for brand implementation projects? What makes Grup Idea a benchmark in brand expansion projects?

(RPM) The working groups at Grup Idea are multidisciplinary, open and made up of technicians from different fields (architects, engineers, etc.). They are made up of technicians from other working groups who contribute different visions to those that a closed group specialising in a single subject may have.

(AM) This is part of the secret of Grup Idea and could be better explained to us by those who are now in charge of organising them, who are Alex, Judit and Miriam, responsible for the different business areas.

In large part, the secret is knowing how to combine quality with the speed/agility of a multidisciplinary team with very different mentalities.

 

• From your point of view, what do clients value most about our company?

(AM) What they value most about us is our professionalism, quality and agility in resolving all issues, rigour and professional ethics.

(RPM) Professionalism, quality, flexibility, availability, adaptability and experience.

 

• What is Grup Idea’s greatest strength and weakness, and what is the biggest challenge you are currently facing?

(RPM) Our strengths are the people who make up Grup Idea, their involvement, dedication and knowledge. Working as a team. And our clients, who trust us, are also part of our strength. Our weakness could be the uncertainty in which we live. Society is apparently chaotic, disorganised, unpredictable, indecisive? But one of our greatest skills is active listening and this allows us to adapt our services in a flexible way.

(AM) Our greatest strength is our team and our greatest weakness is the market itself. Our biggest challenge is to adapt to the new ways of working and requirements of brands, as well as to overcome the new players in the market.

 

“What they value most about us is our professionalism, quality and agility in resolving all issues, rigour and professional ethics.” Alejandro Mora

 

• What do you think has been Grup Idea’s greatest success (in the short term, the last 5-10 years)?

(RPM) Consolidating as a company. Rebounding in times of difficulty and remaining stable and proportionate in times of success.

(AM) Maintain the company at its right size despite crises or pandemics.

 

• What are Grup Idea’s goals in the short, medium and long term?

(AM) The same as in recent years, to keep the company providing the same professional, agile and quality service.

(RPM) To continue the company as it is now. We have achieved a good balance between size, staff, clients and projects and it should stay that way in the future. Growth for growth’s sake will get us nowhere, but maintaining size, quality and confidence will.

 

• What does “being international” mean to you?

(AM) Working for brands in our country or in other countries regardless of where they come from and/or where they have to carry out their work. We have all the tools to carry out projects outside our country of origin and that is something that is valued.

(RPM) Adapting to geographical circumstances in order to respond to the needs of our clients regardless of location.

 

“Growing for the sake of growing gets us nowhere, but maintaining size, quality and confidence does”. Rodolfo Pérez-Martos

 

• How will the current mission, vision and corporate values help to achieve these objectives?

(RPM) The mission, vision and corporate values must be the basis from which Grup Idea is maintained and developed.

(AM) By maintaining them as they are today.

 

• With your entry into the management of Grup Idea, what is going to be preserved and promoted and what is going to change with respect to the mission, vision and values of the company?

(AM) As I said before, we are continuing with what we have been doing and our idea is to preserve the company as it is, but adapting to the times. The Grup Idea of today is not the same as it was 10 or 20 years ago, nor will it be the same in another 10 or 20 years, we will adapt to the times we live in.

(RPM) Our aim must be to maintain the legacy we have received and the values of the company that have defined us up to now and have been a guarantee of success, but adapting to the new challenges that are ever more changing, faster and more demanding so that Grup Idea will continue to be Grup Idea for many more years to come.