businessinfomag.uk
magazine
40
Putting value
before price
Business people often view office
furniture solely as a cost. Yet, furniture
is just as capable of delivering a return
on investment as employees and
technology. In fact, the best way to
get maximum value for money from
seating and desking is to see it not
as a cost but as an investment that
can open up new possibilities and
opportunities for your business. It
may require a change of mind-set on
your part, but the effort is well worth
it. Here are some top tips to get you
started.
1
Replaceable parts.
Ensure you
purchase furniture with replaceable
parts. There is no economic advantage
in buying a cheap chair if you have
to replace the whole chair when the
armrest breaks. And, let’s face it, in a
busy office or communal area with high
usage, parts are going to break. It’s much
easier and cheaper to replace a small
part rather than an entire unit. This also
results in less waste for your organisation
and for the environment.
2
Plan for ‘hot desking’.
A relatively
recent phenomenon, hot desking is an
increasingly common feature of the
modern workplace, so that nowadays
office furniture might have many
different users during the course of a day
or week. This affects your furniture in
two ways.
First, it subjects it to much more
wear and tear. To rectify the problem,
choose hard-wearing fabrics and
materials for areas with high levels of
traffic and many different users. Doing
this at the planning stage avoids the
high cost of re-upholstering when the
seating is in service.
Secondly, it makes your furniture
much more susceptible to damage
caused when users try to customise
‘uncustomisable’ furniture to their
individual needs.We have seen
everything from clients trying to turn
cantilever chairs into rocking chairs to
employees creating their own sit-
stand desking – always with unhappy
outcomes. To avoid these situations, for
hot desking areas, consider furniture
with basic customisability. As a
minimum, all chairs should be height
adjustable, back-rest adjustable and
offer swivel or non-swivel settings. Give
users some adjustability and there will
be less temptation for them to create it
themselves.
3
Plan your areas.
Business owners and
managers often assume that applying
the same type of chair across their entire
business will save money. However,
each area of an office is unique and
has different needs. On the face of it,
rolling out the same chair across all
areas may look like a money-saver, but
what might the costs be in terms of
reduced productivity, high staff turnover
and lower morale and enthusiasm?
Businesses should be hot-beds of activity,
places where information is shared,
ideas are exchanged and innovation
thrives. If staff are flat because the tools
they use are not fit-for-purpose, it can
have a huge impact on the success of a
business. The effects are often insidious
and might not at first seem obvious, so
it’s important to pay close attention to
planning and always see the big picture.
4
Service agreements.
Ensure you have
a suitable service agreement in place
with your supplier. Small fixes you should
be able to DIY on site. However, some
furniture may need specialist tools or
someone with experience to maintain.
If something breaks or goes wrong, it’s
vital that you get in someone quickly to
resolve the problem. Unusable furniture
stored away in the basement doesn’t just
represent capital that you are not making
good use of, its storage and replacement
are an added cost and expense.
5
Buy cheap, buy twice.
As the old
adage goes, you get what you pay
for. Furniture that seems cheap up
front can sometimes cost more in
the long run.When you cost a project
initially remember to take everything
into consideration. Look at product
guarantees, expected lifecycle, cost
of maintenance and repair, as well as
disposal costs.When everything is taken
into account, the lowest up-front cost is
often not the best value option. Lifecycle
costs are a much more accurate way of
gauging value.
Office Furntiure
Stacey Turner of Scandinavian Business Seating offers her top tips on how
to get maximum value from your investment in office furniture.
Stacey Turner,
Scandinavian
Business Seating
For a free seating
assessment please
call 0208 683 9415
or email info@
sbseating.co.uk
