The specification, finally on the record

Architects play a pivotal role in specifying furniture solutions for projects. Their effort in driving the brand's adoption was not formally recognised or rewarded, which meant it was also not recorded. The brand's most influential audience was working on its behalf off the books.

There was no structured system to track specifications. A project might be won on an architect's recommendation and nobody would be able to say so afterwards, which made the contribution impossible to reward fairly or to plan around.

Validation was the second gap. Even where an architect-driven opportunity was known, there was no defined route for the BD team to confirm it, so any reward would have rested on assertion rather than a reviewed record.

Participation works from either end. An architect submits project specifications through the app or web, and the BD team can upload a project on behalf of a tagged architect, which matters because the architect closest to a specification is not always the one most likely to file paperwork. Either route lands in the same queue.

That queue is the control. All submissions are reviewed and approved or rejected by the BD team before points are awarded on business logic across product categories, redeemable via the Xoxoday Marketplace for gift cards, merchandise, travel and experiences. Round-the-year campaigns of festive multipliers, leaderboards, referral bonuses and training modules carry the relationship through the gaps between projects, communicated over app, web and push.

2,400 architects are enrolled, and 71% of specifications now arrive from the architect directly rather than through a BD upload. The dual route is why that number is high rather than a problem: the BD path carried the program while architects were still learning it, and self-submission took over once the value was visible.

Tagged project pipeline grew 3.2x. The BD validation gate is what makes that figure usable: a tagged project has been reviewed by someone accountable, so it can be planned against rather than merely counted. Beyond the numbers, the brand has a structured channel into a professional community it previously reached only through individual relationships.

Takeaway: recognising an architect is not a rewards problem first. It is a recording problem, and the record only holds if someone with authority validates it.