Our work includes the canonical move of Accenture from the Tour Gan in La Defense onto the Champs Elysees in Paris developing what was arguably the world’s first non-territorial office that truly worked and in so doing created the icon for the organisational changes sought by Regional Managing Partner, David Andrews. This was the focal point of the Spacenet® Workplace Strategy which we developed for Accenture across West Europe. It also pioneered the space reservation regime used by Accenture today.
All space was reservable, none was “owned”. Staff reserved their space by three p.m. the previous day for the following day every day and everybody from top to bottom of the organisation conformed. Extremely efficient space ratios were achieved – 35 square feet net per person at its most intensive (with the concomitant reduction in overall cost to the company) but the payback for staff was an excellent location in the heart of Paris, top quality design environment and a five star service rendered by a professional hotel trained brigade of “floor attendants” whose job it was to make life easy for consultants managers and partners alike.
This project’s message to Accenture’s market was “we are prepared to be radical with ourselves so why can we not talk to you about radical solutions for your business problems?” In so doing it helped Accenture France move upwards from 58th on the Accenture country success list to first in a matter of three years.
- First working non-territorial office in world
- Moved from Tour GAN in La Defense to most expensive building on Champs Elysees but saved over $1m a year
- 2000 staff used 450 seats
- Space reserved day on day
- 5 star hotel service level
- “SpaceNet” applied across Accenture world
- Design Business Association “Design Effectiveness” award 1996
