“Artisan Design Group’s Creative Problem Solver”

With the depth and breadth of an Information Technology career spanning more than 27 years, Delano Gordon is uniquely qualified to speak on technology topics in industry. That exposure has made him adept at solutioning for strategic scenarios balancing necessity, practicality, and cost.

Colleagues have described his default nature as thorough and analytical but never to the extent of actionable paralysis; but instead, enough to warrant sufficient consideration to any matter. This is evident in the number of technology-based solutions that have transformed Artisan Design Group into today’s company, nearly doubling in size in just five short years. Technology investments made during his tenure continue to touch all aspects of the business, positively impacting the back-office, field operations, and across customer-facing opportunities.

During his early childhood he emigrated with his family from Panama to the United States as a Spanish-speaking 7-year-old in the early 80s at a time when little academic focus was placed on immigrant children with language deficiencies. This formidable experience left an impressionable mark that impacted his development. The duality of living in two cultures, bridging two languages, across two nations, was a challenging one. Armed with the youthful experience of dealing with diversification, Delano continues to successfully transform organizations, and in like manner is leading Artisan Design Group to greater heights.

"Technology enhancements made during his tenure continue to touch all aspects of the business, positively impacting the back-office, field operations, and across customer-facing opportunities."

Artisan Design Group is comprised of 21 independent companies, each cultivating their own unique identity. Maintaining long-standing community relationships are core tenets of the company ethos. National scale with local execution are words the company stands by. It is the ADG culture, one cultivated from the collective expertise of local partners who have independently run their respective businesses for decades.

According to Delano, the year 2020 brought with it the necessity to change the approach to how traditional design centers interacted with new homebuyers. The mandatory quarantines and lockdowns made it ever so challenging for ADG’s design center consultants who were accustomed to personally walking new homebuyers through their home interior selection journey. The new challenge presented was to maintain or improve customer engagement by providing stellar service through virtual or remote means.

ADG sought to address the issue head-on and launched an initiative aimed at virtualizing the design center experience. They designed an online platform to engage their builder customer population. Once a contracted homebuyer is identified they are granted portal access to browse through thousands of product selections fitting their design tastes. Homebuyers may scan through product images and review details for hardwood, tile, carpet, and other categories throughout their living spaces. Items of particular interest may be flagged for later review. Comparative pricing is also available across selection scenarios, giving customers the advantage of knowing how different upgrades may affect their budget.

Professional design collections, or packages, may also be saved to assist customers with recommended color palettes. To further provide visual perspective, customers can also swap out product selections viewed in 360-degree home scenes throughout key rooms. When the customer physically visits the ADG design center, they are presented the option of putting on VR goggles and immersing themselves in a virtual home, navigating from room to room viewing product selections. Virtual pre-visits serve to personalize interactions between ADG design consultants and customers. They have the added benefit of compressing design center appointment times, allowing for a more efficient visit and increasing the aggregate number of weekly appointments.

ADG believes the post-COVID era will see the transformation to new norms. “To cope we must adapt to these norms. We plan to further enhance our virtual capabilities, raise our services bar, and make Artisan Design Group the easiest company to partner with,” says Delano. “The company continues to push both organic and inorganic growth. The outlook to go beyond our 21-member family and continue to serve a diverse customer mix in long served communities is a positive one.” IE