A specialist interior office design company has a greater understanding of what an organisationEUR^(TM)s future needs will be, and can put in place the most appropriate IT cooling and power management solutions for the organisationEUR^(TM)s future growth.

And because it already has partnerships with organisations such as APC and Rittal, it is more likely to be able to save time and money by doing it right first time around.LetEUR^(TM)s take a closer look at some of the costs involved. In addition to the cost of building walls and floors, the following costs have to be considered for interior office design:

• air conditioning, which might cost up to ?15,000
• an extra ?12,000 for uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems.
• Communications for a data centre of 5-8 server racks would be around ?10000, plus all your network costs

In total, thatEUR^(TM)s pretty close to ?50,000, just for a medium-sized, server room facility. Now, you wouldnEUR^(TM)t ask your facilities manager to design ?50,000 worth of office, kitchen, or meeting room space because thatEUR^(TM)s just not what they do. So why would you ask your communications people to put their signature against that amount of money because they EUR~doEUR^(TM) IT?

http://www.interiorsgroup.co.uk/it_services.html

Our company is known throughout the industry for its efficiency and common sense cost-cutting measures. Long ago, we streamlined every aspect of our corporation. We get more done with less money than most of the businesses out there, and we get better every day. Not to brag, but money saving tips from our corporation are viewed as invaluable among many of our rivals. That is why so many people get surprised when they see our office design. In a day of small cubicles, they are definitely nice by contemporary standards. We have nice office chairs and gorgeous office desks. Even our junior partners have office computer desks made out of authentic cherry wood stained a beautiful, rich, dark red.

Naturally, I have been asked why I spend so much money on office design when I’m willing to cut expenses basically everywhere else. After all, isn’t one office desk about as good as another? The answer is no. I actually discovered this trick while I was working at home on my office computer desk. At the time, I was somewhat of a cheapskate. Working as a junior executive trying to make it into the big time, I wouldn’t waste money on practically anything. I would not even spend money on nice office computer desks EUR” I was working at the dining room table! Then one day, the stresses of not having a well set up workspace got to me. My kids were too loud, my house was too cluttered, and I was completely overwhelmed.

I set up my spare bedroom as in office space and invested in a nice office desk, executive chair, and everything else that goes with it. Suddenly, my productivity was way up! Sitting at professional looking office design just simply makes you feel more professional. It is as simple as that. You don’t want to clutter or scratch the nice wood, so you keep your supplies well-organized and arranged. You feel like a professionals, so you work like a professional, manage your time like a professional, and even dress like a professional.

This is why I decided to bring in such nice office desks. I didn’t want to hand down dress codes, and I didn’t want to lecture people on proper office decorum. I simply wanted to create an environment where professionalism was taken for granted! When you treat your employees with respect, you get results. When looked at that way, expensive office desks are a small sacrifice.

http://www.interiorsgroup.co.uk

In a 2006 survey by Management Today magazine, virtually all
(97 per cent) of those responding said that they regarded their
place of work as a symbol of whether or not they were valued by
their employer. Yet only 37 per cent thought that their offices had
office design EUR~with people in mindEUR^(TM), and no less a third said that
they were too ashamed of their offices to bring back colleagues
or clients.

This is the kind of gap which should worry management and
which, were it to occur in any other discipline in business, would
almost certainly get urgent attention in the boardroom. So why
do so many companies continue to dress the office design in rags in a
country which must, in the face of growing international
competition, earn its living by its wits?

The answer may be that a companyEUR^(TM)s most natural response to
that same force of competition is to seek to drive down its costs
and office design represent a cost that is both readily identified and
readily comprehended. As in so many facets of life, however, a
preoccupation with cost may actually destroy value: but the ways
in which office design can create value for a business, not just through
economy but also through improving the effectiveness of its people and
broadcasting positive messages about its values, are inadequately understood.

Professional planning allows the connection between office design
and business performance is therefore both important and timely. It
provides a positive route map for those facing the challenges and
opportunities of addressing their businessEUR^(TM)s accommodation
needs; and it does this by:

EUR? summarising what we actually know, so that we can embed this
learning in good practice and avoid re-exploring the same issues

EUR? summarising what more could be known, pointing to the need
for further research on your office design

EUR? proposing a framework for the analysis and application of
accommodation factors which affect business performance

EUR? suggesting a standardisation of the language and protocols by
which this subject is pursued, so that we can accumulate a
growing body of knowledge on office design as national
importance.

None of this will throw up easy answers, and one by-product of
employing poressionals should be the abandonment of the very
idea that there might be a single answer to any userEUR^(TM)s question
a holy grail of office design, it does, however, point the way by which
individual users might find their answer, and demonstrates that
the effort is worthwhile.

For those who get this wrong, the best they can hope for is a
missed opportunity; and the worst is nothing less than the loss of
their key people as a consequence of growing dissatisfaction
with their office design.For those who get it right, the
reward, if not the holy grail, can be something almost as magical.
http://www.interiorsgroup.co.uk

Tags: Office Design

Many organisations considering a new office design or office move make a number of basic errors. TheyEUR^(TM)ll often choose the building first, before considering the interior design to match the organisationEUR^(TM)s needs. Then, having made one error, they compound it by giving the job running the move to the IT Department.

Now, IT Departments have a lot of qualities: theyEUR^(TM)re using technology to deliver business benefits, to cut costs, even introduce process innovation to deliver competitive advantage. And theyEUR^(TM)re fairly well-employed just achieving those goals.

What the IT Department does well is what it does on a day-to-day basis: it knows about workstations; it knows about servers; itEUR^(TM)s fully involved with patching; and antivirus procedures; and itEUR^(TM)s delivering new systems. And then, just when itEUR^(TM)s trying to deliver on those goals, you ask it to organise the office move
or the new office design.

Why your IT Department should stick to its core business

Your IT department is not lookingEUR”ahead thinking about your office move and office design because it is already well-employed doing what it already does. Some non-IT people within the organisation might believe that your IT department EUR~knows everything about ITEUR? but they donEUR^(TM)t realise how broad a subject office relocation really is.

Actually, if you examine how well an IT department has organised office moves in the past, youEUR^(TM)ll find that most IT people are embarrassed about how messy and disorganised their server rooms can be from an air conditioning and power management perspective. YouEUR^(TM)ll rarely find IT-organised air conditioning that is well organised, neat and tidy. ThatEUR^(TM)s not a criticism of ITEUR^(TM)s efforts: IT is simply starting out with limited knowledge about office design. ThereEUR^(TM)s too much important stuff about air conditioning, building design and power management that IT really only has a sketchy understanding of.

IT wonEUR^(TM)t have talked about a unified, integrated approach to office design EUR” you canEUR^(TM)t expect it to - and if you asked your IT department to design a conduit for all the data switches, network switches and servers, then thatEUR^(TM)s exactly what it will do. It will put the server into the rack and put the racks in the computer room. But if you were to ask your IT director the optimum configuration to use, and how it is being or cooled, then youEUR^(TM)ll get an incomplete answer, because thatEUR^(TM)s an area that most departments are not sufficiently aware of.

ThatEUR^(TM)s not to say that some people in IT wonEUR^(TM)t get enjoy the responsibility of organising the office move. Some will like the opportunity of working on the new office design, and they may even make a passable job of it. Generally, it goes one of two ways, both of which are almost diametrically opposed to each other