Futureproofing Symbiote-Fishbeck

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) in recent years has shrouded people and businesses in much uncertainty. Symbiote has been a leader in the lab furniture industry for years, but now they wonder if the introduction of AI in labs would come to affect their hard-earned position. Fishbeck, a leading design firm also questioned how AI would change the way humans interacted with their spaces, like lab technicians navigating an AI-powered lab, for instance. To get ahead, the Symbiote and Fishbeck partnered up and consulted the assistance from the Grand Valley State University Master of Business Administration cohort. My team of 4 was fortunately chosen to address Symbiote-Fishbeck's needs and we had 6 months to deliver actionable results.

Challenge 1: Downloading the Team

With AI evolving constantly and the lab furniture industry being niche to outsiders, the first barrier my team had to overcome was learning as much about the subject matter as possible. We met with our clients every fortnight from the project onset, but there was still much to learn.

Being the team member who had the most experience in business consulting and systematic research, I helped develop a system and timeline for my team to scour all available sources. Working with what I know, I introduced a research matrix (see below) to effectively store and retrieve sources that helped us advance our client work.

Challenge 2: Conducting the Research

Our secondary research proceeded for a month while we reached out to industry experts to schedule interviews and lab tours. Our biggest takeaways from the secondary sources is that (1) AI's growth direction is still unpredictable, (2) AI has been implemented in labs, but largely in Europe, and (3) every lab operates under different rules and regulations, depending on their locations, size, and research area.

With some established direction, we initiated our primary research. Once the team was able to put together a list of questions, we put out a survey for lab professionals. While we waited for responses, I toured a university lab and interviewed a furniture company executive and a lab sciences professor at Grand Valley State University. Then, as a team, we toured the testing lab at Corewell Health.

The interviews were intended to investigate the sentiments of lab professionals on AI and how furniture could play a role in their work. Similarly, the tours allowed us to observe how people interacted with the lab and where AI could interject itself in those interactions.

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