The recent economic slide has caused some Connecticut companies to falter, but Hartford-based Interscape Commercial Environments, which began operations in 2006, is weathering the storm just fine.
Interscape, which sells office furniture and offers move management and space planning services, has posted double-digit growth for each year it’s been in business, with its smallest growth — 20 percent — posted last year.
Interscape’s management attributes its growth to diversifying its products and services to meet a changing market. The company has been selected the “Overall” winner in the $1,500,000-$5,000,000 category for the Business Champions Awards.
“We’re very project-based, and starting off in the market we heavily focused on the commercial market,” said Joshua Hagstrom, principal and vice president of sales at Interscape. “Last year, though, we diversified, focusing on products and services that cater to the education and health care markets. The economic downturn in 2009 forced us to look at how we were going to market and change our ways.”
Just four years after Interscape began operations, the company has been working hard on face-to-face marketing to develop a name for itself.
“We’re talking face to face with architects, the commercial broker community and the design community, making sure we’re getting involved in their organizations and understanding what they do on a day-to-day basis,” Hagstrom said. “They’re the ones interacting with the end users and we want them to understand how we could be a part of that initial step in that process.”
Interscape, which now has nine employees, is facing a changing marketplace in the area of workplace furnishings.
“It’s a time of four generations being in the workplace and that’s never happened before,” Hagstrom said. “How does that play into the planning and the furnishings of the workplace? We’re trying to help our customers understand that it’s evolving and changing and moving forward.”
While office furnishings may seem anything but high tech, Interscape sells products that meet the needs of the increasingly technology-focused workplace. The company is an authorized Teknion dealer, a furniture manufacturer which has made its mark with technology and design. Hagstrom said Teknion was one of the first to design its furniture to accommodate the growing mass of cables associated with more computer use in the workplace.
“One of the reasons we can work with architects and the design community so well is that our products are so design-forward and cater to a function and aesthetic that a lot of other manufacturers can’t cater to,” Hagstrom said.
More and more workplaces are mere temporary stops in the day of an employee, as people become much more transient. Hagstrom said his products and services address that issue.
“ ‘Touchdown stations’ for an hour or two a day are more common in the workplace, instead of your high-panel, eight-by-eight cubicle,” Hagstrom said. “A lot of meetings today are happening in lounge chairs around the coffee table, and it’s about how technology changes to that work environment.”
Interscape’s space planning services help to personalize a company’s workplace furniture set up to make it ideal for how that office runs on a day to day basis.
“We’re typically working on a product to completion,” Hagstrom said. “(We find out) what departments they have, how those departments work and how we can create a better environment to work more efficiently and collaboratively.”
Interscape’s own office environment is an example of the products and services the company sells, and the employees all buy into the company’s belief in meeting the changing needs of employees.
“We’re constantly having conversations internally, talking about how we can encourage change and adapt to the conditions we have today,” Hagstrom said.
