Strategic decisions

There are various factors that influence your business and may result in the need for relocating or reorganising your offices. Although businesses vary considerably the forces that act on them are similar. Most organisations are faced with changing markets, structures and systems. This has had a dramatic effect on the workplace. Large businesses benefit from in-house facilities teams that are constantly attempting to keep up with those changes. Medium and small businesses have to adapt themselves from their own resources. This is often difficult when all senior members of an organisation are involved with running the business. It is essential, however, to give time and effort to making your offices match your needs.


These are some of the factors that are foremost:

Redefinition of customer
The 1990’s saw a trend in companies to become more customer focused. This was not only towards external customers, internal departments had other departments as their internal customers. This made almost everyone in larger organisations customer focused. Now many smaller companies have already moved away from that philosophy, and are promoting team-based work throughout their organisations. Here, small and medium companies are leading the way, showing that changes in the workplace can occur faster in smaller organisations, whereas larger one take longer to react.

More focus on customer needs
Businesses are trying to get closer to their external customers. More and more, business is driven by the needs of customers – hence the general trend towards being nearer to them. Better communication helps but there is still no substitute for getting physically closer. One major UK organisation has recently found that despite investing heavily in video-conferencing it still spends $60 million US per year on international travel.

More problem solving work
Business has become more competitive and, as a result, far more emphasis is now placed on solutions to specific problems of a customer. This often means working in teams that break down the traditional roles of departments, hierarchies and structures.

Less routine
As a result of the shift towards problem solving, many of the routine tasks have disappeared. Those that have not are now carried out by computer wherever possible, or in call centres.

More interaction of staff
Because team working has become much more important to the success of business, teams need to be assembled and re-organised rapidly to respond to changing customer needs. Specialists from different areas of the business will spread across the company. In addition, teams may be assembled from more than one location, linked by computer, video or telephone, or located in a temporary office.

Less time
The development of FAX and later, E-mail meant that clients and customers expected quicker responses to their enquiries. Response by return is now normal and this has replaced the two-to-three day cycle of response by post that used to be common practice. This, in itself, leaves business open to greater risk and increases the need for quick communication within the office to ensure that mistakes are minimised. FAX is now disappearing rapidly because it is seen as a poor use of paper and time.

Pressure on overheads
The idea that a company has a large central resource in the form of overheads has disappeared. The trend has been towards individual accounting for each department and overhead cost of that department being directly allocated to it. This increased accountability has had a major impact on the attitude towards property. The immediacy and visibility of overhead to each department manager

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