Easy Office Relocation

The office furniture business has undoubtedly been hard hit by the credit crunch. Office refurbishment projects have been placed on hold or cancelled whilst firms try to ride out the storm until the economic outlook improves.

A recurring trend is that many firms are reducing staff and choosing to relocate into smaller and more cost effective premises at the end of their leases. Obviously this is growth area for the Office Relocation business. When relocating it can often be cheaper to scrap existing furniture and just replace with a budget range of commercial furniture such as the Dams M25 range of office furniture offered by firms such as Deskshop. A quality commercial M25 desk can cost as little as £100 installed. The price of dismantling existing furniture, transporting it to the new office and reinstalling it can often exceed this price so it may be better to consider buying new.

Even though the general economic conditions are tough for the Office Furniture industry, it seems that Black Office Furniture is very much back in fashion. A dedicated online store has been set up by Deskshop to cater for this niche market. The Black Office Furniture features a wide range of Black Ash Office Furniture products with more to follow.

Just though I would give an update on the weekend office refurbishments that we undertook a couple of weeks ago. The end user client contacted me to advise they we experiencing some difficulty with the Radial Tambour Storage units supplied, in that the doors were jamming on some units and were very stiff on other units. Basically their staff are leaving the tambour units open rather than closing them away and are giving an excuse that the doors are difficult to open and close.

As the installation was undertaken by the furniture manufacturer themselves there should be no problem in getting the issues resolved. This is a big advantage over using a specialist 3rd party installation company in that the manufacturer will have to pick up the tab in sorting the problem out. I spoke to the manufacturers R&D department to discuss the possible causes and solutions of these problems. The actual construction is fairly basic. The Tambour doors run between an upper and a lower plastic tracking.  We will have to wait and see what the service engineer report says.

The weekend office refurbishment project for our client went very smoothly. Preliminary work by the clients other contractors was running on time and the office clearance and carpet fitting fully completed by the time our 9 strong installation team arrived on site at 12:30pm on Sunday afternoon.

The installation team had to work with the client’’s electricians. Desks were assembled and then left inverted for the electricians to install electrical boxes. The furniture installers then returning back to the task of positioning the desking and cupboards into position. In the meantime the tambour storage units, office seating and pedestals were assembled. The job was finished at approximately 8pm and the clients 39 staff returned into work on Monday morning to a complete off

Its been a hectic start to the year. This weekend we have managed to arrange an urgent office refurbishment fit out for Sunday afternoon on 11th January. A client in the Merseyside area contacted us a few days before Christmas. An on site meeting was organised for 23rd December at 3pm and a suggested order was proposed for 38 desks, 16 radial storage units, 19 custom design and fabric desk screens, 39 custom fabric chairs. Most of the furniture was in stock so stock was reserved with the manufacturer just to hold these products for the proposed order.

Our client had very demanding timescales to meet as they were hoping to refurbish their call centre by 11th January in time for a visit by one of their new VIP clients. Problem was that the entire office furniture industry closes down for a couple of weeks between Christmas and New Year, plus the decision makers on the client were also out of the country on holiday between Christmas and New Year. Just to complicate matters as a business employing around 40 staff the refurbishment needed to take place over the weekend of 10/11 January and they were wanting quotes for removal of existing furniture, plus there was the additional problem of working around new carpets etc.

As much groundwork as possible was done between Christmas and New Year. On return to the office on Monday 5th January we still needed to secure a firm order from the customer in order to get on with ordering custom fabric for the chairs and screens, plus specifying and signing off the design of the custom screens. We received the go ahead for the order, late Monday afternoon but the client had organised removal of their existing furniture themselves. Problem was the installation time was no down to a start time of 1pm on a Sunday afternoon and we still needed quotes for the unsociable hours office installation which was obviously going to be more expensive.

After chasing everybody at the furniture manufacturers just to make sure this all happened in time everything seems to have fallen into place at this moment, even with a late request for an additional 36 pedestals to be added to the order. A team of 9 fitters are booked to arrive at the clients at 12:30pm on Sunday afternoon. If there are any on site delays caused by the carpet fitter overrunning this will be expensive with 9 guys booked for 8 hours on double time. Hopefully everything will go to plan. Will keep you all posted.

Most businesses will relocate offices at some stage. The stress involved with office relocation is easy to under estimate. The sectret is to plan ahead and to use reputable businesses to help along the way. You may need to arrange for office furniture to be removed and disposed of from your old office and you may need to arrange for new office furniture to be installed at your new office. The greater the number of staff involved the greater the need to plan well ahead and think about your requirements and the practicalities in detail.