Office furnishing with recycled/refurbished fixtures is cost-effective; eco-friendly too
The concept of recycled/refurbished office interiors also helps in saving a substantial cost as much as by 60-80% without compromising on the quality and elegance of the offices.
NEW DELHI: At the time when the corporate sector is working hard to devise ways and means to keep a tab on the cost escalations in office operations in the wake of ongoing domestic and global slowdown scenarios, the idea of using recycled or refurbished office interiors and fixtures is fast gaining ground.
Apart from addressing the corporate social responsibility (CSR) requirement of ensuring the ecological balance by preventing usage of fresh wood, the concept of recycled or refurbished office interiors also helps in saving a substantial cost as much as by 60 -80 % without compromising on the quality and elegance of the offices.
Even though, this sector in India is relatively unorganized and emerging; a sizable number of corporate entities including small & medium enterprises (SMEs), startups as well as large national and multinational companies (MNCs) have embraced the idea in last few years.
“We have set up offices with recycled/refurbished fixtures such as workstations with chairs, carpeting, fall ceiling, and office equipment for more than 100 startups with 10 to 40-seat capacity each as well as SMEs with up to 100 -200 seats. We also have taken up turnkey projects for large companies with capacity running in 200 to 600 or up to 1000 seats using the same concept,” said Rajesh Ahuja, Founder, AV Trading & Co, that has floated a specialized concept TenWork India especially for this sector.
Interestingly, the fitments are sourced from large corporate entities, including Fortune 500 companies and other MNCs, those who are either relocating to a newer location or change their office fixtures every 3-4 years as part of their corporate policy.
The workstations and other fixtures disposed of by these companies are not only global European brands like Haworth, Steelcase, and Teknion, of high quality; these are generally in excellent condition for productive reuse. Recently a multinational bank imported entire furniture from Germany but switched to a new office soon fixings and disposed of the earlier office fixture to players like TenWork India.
“These fixtures are refurbished using expertise and are turned into reusable material that looks as good as new and comes with maintenance and warranty support for the users,” said Rajesh Ahuja, who was instrumental in introducing the concept of refurbished office fixtures in customized settings in Delhi and NCR a few years back.
An unrecognized sector that lacked expertise:
The scenario, however, was not the same about 6-7 years back in Delhi and NCR towns when large companies, while relocating or going in for new interior, would dispose of their office fixtures to scrap dealers at throwaway prices.
Profoundly ignorant of the concept of professional dismantling, restructuring & re-designing, renovation, and relocation services, these untrained scrap dealers would dismantle the office fixture recklessly, destroy costly installations such as workstations to extract metal to make their earnings. What an example of lost opportunities!
However, it was in the year 2012 when Rajesh Ahuja, who worked with a company, then as Admin Head spotted the flaw the hard way when his 100-seat office wanted to dismantle fixtures, and it received rough handling at the end of scrap dealers.
“This was the time when I spotted the huge gap in the office fixture/renovation segment, and I planned to introduce expertise in this sector by trying to regulate it. I decided to make the recycled/refurbished fixture induced office renovation concept a significant cost-saving tool for the corporates. I quit the job to float AV Trading & Co,” said Ahuja, who later set up TenWork India for the same purpose.
Since the scrap dealers were reselling used or second-hand material with no value addition, it was not a conducive option for the buyers too.
“I set up a team for professionally dismantling the workstations and other gadgets from the companies, worked hard to make them reusable using the expertise and offered the same to the industry as a complete solution with maintenance and warranty support. It was an alternate to new office fixtures and an effective cost-saving tool,” added Ahuja, whose company has offered this cost-effective solution to a score of companies of the cumulative capacity of over 6000 seats so far.
A branded chair that costs new at Rs 12,000 can be refurbished and made available at Rs 3,500 with features of as good as a new product. Likewise, a Rs 18,000 chair can be made available at Rs 4,500 and a Rs 1.38 lakh chair at Rs 12,000.
This new emerging segment involves services such as relocation of office after dismantling fixtures, disposing of the same, and acquiring recycled or refurbished fitments while restructuring and re-designing the new or existing office, or renovating the existing office space.
