While we’ve seen a continued push from the government and some entrepreneurs to get their employees back into the office in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, recent figures from Remit Consulting have shown that this has yet to translate into any actionable change.

With an average of 16.6% occupancy last week, there has been no significant increase in the number of office workers returning to their desks, with this number up just 0.2% in relation to the previous seven days.

Given this and the potential for remote working to become increasingly commonplace in a post-Covid labour market, it’s reasonable to presume that many business-owners will be considering relocating or investing in an office fit-out in the near-term.

We’ll explore the latter idea in a little more detail below, by asking how you can successfully budget for your office fit-out.

Do You Need an Office Fit-out?

Even in the best-case scenario, the cost of office refurbishment and a comprehensive fit-out can represent a significant investment (especially in the current economic climate).

With this in mind, your first step should always be to determine whether or not you actually need an office fit-out, as there may be more suitable and affordable options in certain scenarios.

For example, let’s say that you’re switching to agile or hybrid working in the wake of the pandemic, and therefore want to focus on introducing hot desks and open-plan workspaces. As part of this process, you may also want to factor in social distancing measures by affording each employee more space in which to work, creating the need to reimagine your office interior completely and improve its ergonomics.

However, an office fit-out may not be the best or most cost-effective way of achieving broader goals, such as boosting the wellbeing or productivity of your workforce.

In these cases, you should consider less costly and incremental changes before commissioning a full office fit-out, such as creating a positive workplace culture, improving communication from the leadership and emphasising employee recognition.

What Factors Impact the Cost of an Office Fit-Out?

If you do decide to go ahead with an office fit-out, the next step is to consider the various factors that can impact the total cost. We’ve outlined some of the most important below, so that you can create a more realistic budget and manage your expectations accordingly:

• #1. The Type of Work Required: Not all fit-outs are created equal, as while some require a few cosmetic tweaks, others demand new flooring, additional partitions and similar structural changes. This will have a direct impact on the cost per sq ft, so you’ll need to have a clear understanding of your requirements from the outset. Similarly, you should consider your choice of ICT and AV systems, which offer flexibility in the case of agile working and allow for superior design and aesthetics.

• #2. Your Finish and Furnishings: Fit-out costs per sq ft are also impacted by your choice of furniture and fittings, which in turn depends on your office occupancy levels and core number of employees. Typically, the cost of office furniture ranges from £400 to £700 per individual, so you’ll need to include this as a key part of your budget. Another important factor is your choice of finish, as the cost difference between basic and premium interior finishes can be deceptively high.

• #3. Your Timeline: If you’re switching to a new office space or looking to introduce hybrid or agile working as soon as possible, you’ll also need to create a relevant and realistic timeline for the completion of the fit-out. Of course, projects with shorter timelines may drive increased labour costs, while you’ll have less opportunity to spread out the workload and manage your spending over an extended period of time.

Of course, other universal factors include the age and nature of your building and whether or not it has raised floors (which are ideal for the optimal distribution management and power supply).

You’ll also need to include any budgetary factors that are unique to your circumstances, so preparation is key when creating your budget.

The Last Word

By determining the precise motivation for your office fit-out and understanding the individual factors that impact the eventual cost, you can hopefully make informed decisions as an entrepreneur.

Most importantly, you can determine just how viable it is to conduct an office fit-out, before creating a realistic budget that’s manageable and capable of delivering a return on your investment!

The delivery industry has become very dynamic in the last decade. The internet has reduced demand for the letter post, while the delivery of parcels keeps on growing. Postal companies are changing more and more to parcel delivery companies. Apart from this important shift, Brexit and Covid have generated even more changes.

As a consequence of Brexit legislation and administrative changes, in the last year part of the logistics shifted to other zones, not only in England but also in Ireland. At the same time e-commerce deliveries are growing fast, so fast that the packaging demand has lead to rising packaging prices, in part because of the Covid production restrictions.

Proper packaging is indispensable in preventing the contents from damage by the elements and loss during shipment. It also gives the recipient a good impression of the products they are purchasing.

Benefits of proper packaging for your company.

The myriad benefits of choosing good packaging before mailing your products for a business are:

• It boosts the morale of the recipient on receiving the package.

Proper packaging takes a key consideration into the aesthetic appearance of the package to be delivered. The envelope’s texture, colour, and design can go a long way in getting the recipient excited to open the contents. It is a no-brainer that with meticulously designed A4 envelopes, your documents and message will receive the intended urgency of opening by the recipient

• Proper packaging is an ingenious marketing strategy

Using bespoke packaging materials, you can brand your company’s logo and motto on the envelope. Branded envelopes serve to inform the recipient of your company’s presence, and subsequently, it gives your message the envisioned gravity acting as your company’s informant. Additionally, with proper packaging, you can be guaranteed that your company’s logo and any information on the package will be visible to everyone who comes into contact with it, from the staff working at mailing centres to the family members. It is worth noting that even for confidential documents, the packaging is available for all eyes to see.

• Prevents damage to the contents or loss during shipping.

Packaging is the surest way to ensure that the contents are not lost or damaged by mishandling or the elements during shipping. The packaging material chosen is dependent on the sensitivity of the contents enclosed. For instance, the packaging of pharmaceutical materials will require an enclosure to prevent any medicine deterioration by moisture or air for water and oxidisable drugs.

• It also ensures the contents find the right user in the correct address

The primary detail in packaging material for shipment is the address where the package should be delivered. Consequently, an excellent packaging material should ensure good readability by not fading during shipment until the content reaches the intended user at the location addressed.

Proper packaging of documents can confer the required privacy to the document and prevent any damage to the contents. When choosing a packaging material like envelopes or boxes for personal or professional shipments, consider purchasing from a trusted supplier that can meet your needs and let your packaging stand out.

Not many businesses are really passionate about their processes. Most companies will have a product or service that is their passion and, they hope, the passion of their staff as well. But behind all that, there will be a set of tasks that just need to get done to ensure the smooth operation that enables that product to be made or that service delivered. This has, perhaps, driven the growth of business process outsourcing (BPO) in the UK and elsewhere. While many businesses are passionate about their core product, for BPO providers, the core product are the processes that other businesses require.

In fact, outsourcing is commonplace and second nature to many businesses. Unless they are working with raw materials, they are likely outsourcing parts of their business. However, when it comes to BPO in the UK, there has tended to be some reticence. Some of this may be down to inertia; some of those functions that are outsourced may just seem to be too integral to a company. Others may have had their fingers burned by previous experiences when the outsourcing provider was not at the required standard.

Indeed, many businesses have made the mistake of outsourcing based on price without considering quality. “Failures happen all the time,” says Ralf Ellspermann, who has worked in the BPO industry for over twenty years, “and invariably they are because the client didn’t get their requirements quite right and got carried away by a provider with a low price that proved unrealistic.” Some of this might have been down to inexperience. Certainly in the early days of outsourcing, there were few reliable benchmarks for the expected savings. Today, however, it’s reasonable to expect that a good outsourcing partner in the UK can maintain quality while delivering savings of 10 to 15% for the client.

And the customer experience is crucial to successful outsourcing. Luckily, BPO providers in the UK are well-placed to provide high quality. Providers bring a range of benefits, many a result of their size. While an individual business may only need a few seats, perhaps as few as ten or twenty, specialist providers will have multiple clients and operate facilities with hundreds of agents. This means that they don’t just offer savings because of their scale — their overhead costs are spread between clients—but they can offer significantly better services.

A large outsourcing provider in the UK will be in a position to invest in their service; indeed, they have to invest because it’s their business. They will ensure they have the best possible infrastructure to manage the complexity and volume of modern business processing, whether that’s customer service, information management, or routine support processes. And because of their size, they will be able to invest in their staff, not just in training and development, but also with other opportunities for career progression that encourage staff retention, keeping their skills and knowledge within the organisation.

The result for a business is that they can expect to see their customer satisfaction and net promoter scores improve: Customers will have a better experience, which they will reward with customer loyalty. The client firms will additionally benefit because they will be able to focus on their core product, rather than having leadership capacity absorbed by ancillary business processing functions. Ultimately, they will see the impact of this on the bottom line—not just through the cost-saving in outsourcing, but also in the improved revenue that will result from more satisfied customers promoting them.

“Successful outsourcing starts with the contract,” says Ellspermann, whose Manila-based PITON-Global successfully manages various business processes for UK businesses. “When you get it right, and you have customer success at the heart of it, you will see the benefits almost immediately. If you don’t put the customer experience in the centre of everything you do, your revenue losses will soon outstrip the savings.” Many businesses have discovered this the hard way, but with savings of 15% possible with domestic providers, and up to 50% in BPO centres like the Philippines, there’s no reason businesses can’t have healthy savings and better customer experiences.