Breakaway (A Special Report) --- Technology: Using Office Design to Help Boost Productivity
John Vernon thinks of it as his Captain Kirk moment.</br></br>The president of consulting firm Approach Inc. stood in front of the six-pack of cubicles outside his office one day and realized that "office space is the final frontier" for boosting productivity. His vision: a sleek space allowing his information-technology consulting teams to serve clients at warp speed. His company's office in Valhalla, N.Y., had more in common with the cube farms of Dilbert cartoon fame.</br></br>"The offices were on the exterior of the floor, and I had the corner office, of course, because I was the president," the 38-year-old Texas native says sheepishly. "Everybody else was in a cubicle." If his firm of 60 employees was going to keep increasing revenue at more than 50% a year, he decided, the space needed to reflect the way his company actually did business.</br></br>Fast-forward two years to today. Poorly designed cubicles and window-hogging offices are history. In their place is a work space defined by vertical black-metal supports and clusters of glass-walled conference rooms, desktops with low-rise dividers and tables. Laptops and flat-panel computer screens are scattered across work surfaces, which can be quickly reconfigured. Copiers and such are a few steps away, not down the hall and take the second right.</br></br>"People used to play phone tag or wander around the office to set up meetings," Mr. Vernon says. "Now three guys working in the same area can just wheel their chairs around a computer terminal." As a result, Approach is getting its high-margin product -- client proposals -- to market at least 20% faster than before. "We think a significant portion of this improved performance is directly attributable to our new office space," Mr. Vernon says.