Introduction
Our client, a large Financial Institution with 4,000 staff based in the City of London, was planning to move to a new headquarters building from several locations in the City. They wanted to assess the volume of filing space they would require in the new premises and what processes would need to be implemented to minimise the requirement. They also required input into the space planning and furniture procurement as well as planning and execution of the physical filing move.
Methodology
We carried out the following activities:
- Detailed filing survey (including structured interviews with departmental representatives)
- Development of recommendations for improvement and rationalisation
- Review of space plans
- Technical specification for the filing furniture tenders and evaluation of proposed furniture solutions
- Agreement of action plans with departments to implement the approved recommendations and monitoring of progress of the rationalisation
- Detailed filing allocation planning in conjunction with the departments and the project team
- Supervision of physical filing moves in conjunction with the move team
We were able to develop an excellent level of trust with the individual departments which enabled us to ensure that the rationalisation targets were met and, in most instances, exceeded.
Outcome
The Client conducted an internal end of project review and concluded that we had achieved between 29% and 46% reduction in filing volume in the various divisions. This meant that approx 1,700 filing cabinets did NOT have to be purchased. The report stated that including space savings we had achieved an overall cost avoidance of £2.3 million.
