Profica meets global fit out challenges
Head office fit outs for global concerns extending their footprint in SA can bring numerous challenges when meeting global specifications in a local context. Tasked with the fit out for a leading e-commerce company, Profica was able to ensure expectations were not only met, but exceeded.
Cape-Town based Donia Kamstra, Associate Director at Profica, says that there are particular challenges with global companies that can be related to procurement processes, international specifications and global service provider contracts that may extend to both services and equipment. Additionally, there must be an ability to facilitate and work around procurement, transportation and delivery of long lead international equipment and supplies.
Kamstra says, “The client will often have their own processes around these areas which must be adhered to in all their international office installations. To ensure that these requirements are successfully localised without compromising on the international requirement or local compliance requires a great deal of experience. Our years of undertaking fit outs for global companies in South Africa and on the Africa continent has strongly positioned Profica to undertake projects such as these.”
An important aspect of this particular client fit out when navigating the deliverables within a global procurement process, was to include coordination and facilitation of information from the client’s directly-appointed global consultants and services providers. Profica was able to steer the project team to align with the required programme deadlines whilst adhering to the client’s particular procedures, and interpreting, sourcing and proposing some of the client’s international specifications into local alternatives.
Another critical area for a global fit out often involves timing expectations where, says Kamstra, the project delivery timeframes expected by local stakeholders don’t align with the client’s procurement processes. “For this project, Profica was instrumental in identifying where the bottlenecks were in the process and proposing alternative mechanisms to keep the project aligned with the local delivery time frames.”
Strip out of the existing premises began in February 2018 with the main contract proceeding in March. The client took occupation of the premises at the beginning of July this year, marking an impressive turnaround. Kamstra adds that Profica was able to ensure that practical completion was achieved 30 days prior to this, which was a client requirement, but not always achieved for their global projects.
Kamstra concludes. “I think that the team’s proactive and insightful approach were critical factors to enabling the project delivery that was not only successfully concluded in the client’s anticipated timeframe, but came in under budget. It is always a tremendous feeling to be able to add value such as this, which in turn allows the client to add additional scope. For Profica, our ability to successfully deliver global fit outs is made possible due to an understanding of the complex factors involved in global fit outs, being able to anticipate areas of misalignment and proactively work on these, and ensuring consistent communication with both local and global stakeholders.”
