rendezvous workspaceNorton Rose Fulbright, an international law firm with nearly 3,800 lawyers in 52 offices worldwide is the latest organisation in South Africa to take on board Rendezvous meeting room software from global suppliers NFS Technology Group.

The issue of space management is becoming incredibly important in the busy high-density centres of financial management like London and New York. Now the trend is spreading to firms outside the global hub. And Johannesburg in South Africa is where it’s all happening.

As Norton Rose Fulbright began looking to secure the many benefits derived from the deployment of Rendezvous at their head office in Johannesburg, Chief Technology Officer Bradley Butler commented: “By improving the booking and management of our meeting space using the latest well proven technology for scheduling provided by NFS, we will be able to offer our clients a better quality service experience on a more consistent basis.”

Intelligent space management is a subset of facilities management which includes factors like planning, design, workplace, construction, lease, occupancy, maintenance, furniture, and cleaning. It’s also about people and organisation, which includes catering, accounting, marketing, hospitality and more.

In any organisation staff need to look at different types of rooms and what they are used for: How big should the room be? How many people will it seat? Is space being misused by organising small meetings in large rooms? Does the meeting being planned require video conferencing or telepresence facilities? Understanding the profile of any meeting saves space and saves costs.

Rendezvous has now been installed at Norton Rose Fulbright’s Johannesburg offices. Training has been completed and NFS technicians are working with the law firm to provide self service functionality to their staff through Outlook integration.

“Norton Rose Fulbright’s move into the use of sophisticated meeting room software illustrates the latest trends in this market,” says NFS Chief Executive Officer Luis De Souza. “Rather than just having central control of workspace, people today are looking more towards a hybrid model or moving to a decentralised model. This gives staff the ability to operate through Outlook, their most commonly used environment.

“Through a combination of business rules and approval processes, and with the superb granular control within Rendezvous software, it’s now possible to manage staff viewing and booking without losing central control of space.
“It is interesting to see that organisations in South Africa are looking increasingly at the outsourcing option, including fully hosting for services like MS Exchange. Outsourcing can dramatically reduce internal IT costs from infrastructure to staff and potentially could provide a better longer term service proposition.”

Nicolette Kruger, General Manager of NFS South Africa agrees. “It is wonderful to see that in South Africa the management of space is now being given a higher priority,” she says. “In South Africa, NFS are the market leaders in the meetings and events business, supplying Rendezvous software to commercial venues. Recently, however, we have seen a new uptake of the same technology, but more workspace driven.”

“Larger corporations are seeing the value of managing their space better. They are looking at greater efficiency, but at the same time have proven their acceptance of the new generation of staff who need a level of autonomy in selecting and booking their space in a more dynamic environment. Today, meetings tend to be made at shorter notice and with a requirement for more flexible space. Rendezvous workspace technology is the ideal platform for this.”

Download our white paper on the challenges of space management, here

Contacts:
Peter Carter or Nicolette Kruger
NFS Technology Group
E: peter@nfs-hospitality.com
T: +44(0)1992-514-555 / +44(0)844-335-6898
F: +44(0)1992-514-557
W: http://www.nfs-hospitality.com

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