Hi All, You must be wondering, what different could I offer, by sharing my experience of building a new office space for Finicity's India operations.
After all, every office build out exercise rather big or small in scale must have common elements and hence do not warrant a dedicated blog.
Believe me, I could not imagine that the experience will inspire me to write a blog. The experience was so amazing and full of pleasant surprises that did not want to let it go without me penning it down.
The story goes like this ....
Our Company was sharing office space with another company. Due to increase in employee strength of both the companies, we started to run out of space and hence the hunt for new office started.
OMG!! You really got to have an eye to find an office that everyone likes, is within your budget, is accessible for employees, is secure, safe and above all is a place where company operations can run smoothly. I realized this while I was assisting my VP International Operations @ Finicity.
I did not know until I started looking out for an office space that a parallel business runs @ navi mumbai to get clients what they want. Brokers or agents as they are called, are the ones who earn their bread & butter through such deals. They do come at a cost but are the ones who accelerate your search and get you the best you can get. Though my preference will be to get an office space without a broker involved but somehow it does not work in India that way. I am not sure why the Internet property portals have not been able to replace these agents .....
Well, lets move on ........
We finally landed on a nice commercial building right across Jui Nagar station ...... Though its yet to be completed building and we were the second or third tenant .... It's location and make, at the cost that we got it, is I believe makes it a great find ....
Our owners, businessmen in a local food market, were kind enough to give their nod to get the office space build out started asap ...
The next task was to get the office build out done ......
Time to look out for next set of professionals ..... The architect & his team..... Part of another booming business in India ...... These are people who convert empty office place into work place ........
I loved my interactions with these people, whose creativity always is @ best, at-least need to be at best ......
The build out project also gave me in depth perspective of what all things, small or big, are needed to create a work place ..... From the tiles to the carpets, from bathroom fittings to workstation fixtures ... Every little thing .... Little but highly important .......
Another important thing I realized ..... That it's never the architect alone who is responsible for building the workplace ... It's the team .... Carpenters, electrician, painters, plumbers, civic workers, laborers .... Ever thought of these guys ..... The unsung heroes of every amazing office .....
I was extremely amazed to see how an office build out of a US based company can create employment for the unorganized sector and most neglected sector of India ..... I felt happy .....
The story does not stop here ...... Believe me I met few of the most amazing people when I got an opportunity to talk to them .... Who says you need a degree to do wonders with your work ... Who says you need to be literate to amaze literate people ....
I was only wondering what education could have done to these guys .....
From the owners who belong to a completely different field, in-fact belonging to an unorganized sector, no way related to IT and to many individuals from different sections of India's unorganized industries, who were part of office build out project, it was clear to me that how these kind of project is generating employment and revenue for our people ....
The above experience reiterated my belief that we live in a world of limitless possibilities .... Imagine what impact each one of us can create by realizing these possibilities and make the most of them .....
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