The moving season of Branch offices has finished with the branch office in Iasi (Romania). Since Friday 08/01 (a bit before), everyone was ready to move into the Tudor Office Center. In one of my last posts I described moving the office in Hanoi; I quantified our relocations to 3 branches over the past 15 months. We have just completed a successful 4th move in 16 months.

Over the past 14 months in the previous premises, the growth of the branch permitted us to occupy space for 40 + people. Now it has been necessary to provide for larger premises to keep up with the branch growth. The Tudor Office Center quickly became our choice in relation to its quality according to our usual selection criteria (power, generator, location, Internet operators…). Besides its remarkable appearance which can be distinguished easily from the plane upon arrival at the airport (first time in the history of Pentalog branches). What we have lost in the view of the city (we probably had the best), we have gained in luminosity.

For the arrangement of these premises, it was the first time we called upon an architect. For 760 m² of overall space, we got an original proposal, different from a traditional division. The specifications consisted of the following: 2 adjoining and communicating meeting rooms, 2 discussion rooms (small meeting room), vast space-friendly open spaces for production, but yet separated. We were not disappointed with the results. After some adjustments, we got what we wanted for the moderate budget that we had provided for:

- The office design allows for the distribution of the workplace for up to 120 people in a friendly and modern arrangement.
- The 2 meeting rooms communicate, allowing for a larger space by simply pushing back the partition-walls.
- The discussion rooms are used for privacy for one to three people for discussions, follow-up meetings or phone calls.
- A designed floor (provided for upon construction) which provides great flexibility in organizing the offices spaces.
- The production areas are not completely segregated. They are segmented into work areas for 15 to 30 people.
- Even if the spaces are open, the temperature control system shows its effectiveness in the management of the work areas.
- User-friendliness was not ruled out with a reception area and a spacious kitchen sitting 15 people.
- In regards to IT there is a server room. The building is equipped with optical fiber by national operators who give each a connection of 50 Mbps.

It is also clear that our landlord is unusual in a country like Romania. He understood that his first priority was not to make us cough up a lot of money but rather to establish a relationship of trust and add value to his property.

The move was completed without difficulty and without damage. It must be said that it was assured by the super motivated employees of the branch and some of them had already participated in the previous move. The objective therefore was known to all: Production must continue Monday morning! The maturity level has increased. In addition, the team preparing the move under the supervision of Gregory [Constantin, Sebastian, Cosmina] did a very good job. This move started with the lowest risk ever in terms of the IT elements. Saturday at 12 am, the former office was empty. At 3 pm, everything was in place in the new-one. I would like to thank all those who participated in this successful move.

I would like to go back to the designed floor. The gain in flexibility is not immaterial. It also reduced the budget for wiring to around 4k euros. We will need to study whether the gain in flexibility and in the wiring and speed of implementation will not make this kind of floor a must-have in our next branches.

Several factors are at the origin of the low level of risk at the beginning of this move:

- We have internalized many services in 2009 which gave us greater autonomy than before: Management of the Level 3 network, Centrex. It had been systematically in changing the IP addresses (level 3) and the migration of the Centrex that deployment has not been realized on time.

- The move was anticipated so that we were able to negotiate costs and manage the unexpected. We realize that this cannot be done systematically.

Here is a quick video presentation of the branch. A further video commentary will be prepared in the coming days which will be given by the Branch director, Gregory.

Currently, there are no plans for further moves or openings in the first quarter of 2010. But things change quickly and we will adapt quickly.