How to bring three offices together in style
Beca is New Zealand’s largest professional services company, offering engineering consultancy services as well as business and technology advisory, architecture, planning and environment, project and cost management, and valuation services. They have 20 offices across Asia Pacific, including Christchurch.
Prior to the 2011 Canterbury earthquake, Beca had 170 people based in the region, which has since grown to 320. The team, until recently, had been spread across three different temporary offices.
In April 2017, they re-joined Christchurch’s CBD under one roof; in a building which they had a significant role in creating. Occupying one and a half floors across 4200sqm, Beca had the expertise to architecturally design their office space; what they needed was a company that would provide a range of quality interior solutions at a competitive price.
Garth Cann, Beca’s Associate/Manager Christchurch Corporate Services was the main decision maker in the tender process to select a company to provide the furniture fit out for their new office space. OfficeMax was the only company out of the three responses that met the requirements and was awarded the main tender.
"It was a great process - decisions were made quickly, and the coordination with suppliers went smoothly." - Garth Cann
Four seasons in one space
Once the tender was awarded, Beca’s architect contacted OfficeMax Furniture Specialist Tracy Hilton directly to talk through options and styles. The theme was ‘South Island Seasons’; coloured carpets, big floor spaces and coloured furniture that would identify sections.
Beca’s Christchurch team were moved into the new building over a weekend, and they reported how delighted they were when they first entered their new space. They had designed the meeting rooms in the centre of the office so that everyone is able to sit by the windows.
Everyone now has a window view – they can all see how the city has changed, and how vibrant it is. Weeks later people were still commenting on the bright open spaces of their new office.
Making it easy
As with any big project, some unforeseen issues did crop up, for example difficultly delivering items due to their location in the central city, however nothing was too big to overcome. “The team at OfficeMax did a great job,” Garth says “they were really respectful of all occupants of the building, and took all their rubbish away with them.”
Beca and OfficeMax have had a long standing relationship for over 25 years now. Garth says Tracy was “very attentive and knew what we expected. She had knowledge of who we are and how we like to work, and was able to work with our teams to provide the desired outcomes.”
"OfficeMax has such buying power and a breadth of suppliers that they can source a wide variety of items, and the quality of their service is great.
I would absolutely recommend OfficeMax to anyone considering a project like this." - Garth Cann
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