Onextel Pvt Ltd
In collaboration with Dentsu Impact:
ONEXTEL is a telecommunication service company, that is innovative in its approach and curates the most efficient messaging, voice and email solutions. The ambition with which this company was set up, was to drive brand growths for other brands and become the extraordinary service provider in the market. The company was set up in December, 2014 and their course of communication has changed with every advancement of technology. ONEXTEL believes in building hassle-free, convenient connections, and extending the reach of communication through affordable services.
As they have become a renowned company in the field of telecommunication service, they had approached Higgs Boson and Co for designing their commercial space that is based in Noida, India. We have a specialized team of designers for commercial space, and when they took up this project, they assessed it to be a challenging but interesting. There were various issues Higgs Boson design team came across when they did research about the brand’s desires and the image the brand wishes to portray of itself.
Problem Statement
The very first issue that the design team of Higgs Boson came across while constructing and designing the office space was its layout. The office was in a tunnel layout style, that meant that the site its more in length (4x) rather than in width (x). The only positive attribute of this layout, was that the brief and requirement provided by ONEXTEL mentioned that the reception should be in the center of the office as the lift lobby was located in the center of the layout.
The second major issue that came up was fulfilling the requirement of the working departments and their working environment needs. ONEXTEL have 3 categories of employees i.e Developers, sales Team and CRM (Customer relationship managers).
All three departments had their own work environment needs, that were:
- Developers: The Coders of the company need silence and motivational environment to focus and develop programs.
- Sales: Sales people are always busy with client calls and meeting which includes lots of movement on the floor and they need privacy with their data with technical people.
- CRM: The CRM team needs a zone that is free from unnecessary sound as they have to make calls to the customers that have bought the service of the company and that zone should be the least distracting.
Design Concept
The identification of customer traits and expectations combine to supply channel values. The channel values are delivered through products, content, and experience.
The customers are broadly divided into two types-
Higgs Boson Design team did an outstanding job to design the office space keeping in mind the requirement of the brands and the image they wish to portray through their office. The Special Experience design was also part of the designing process. The ED team is a specialized wing of Higgs Boson, that provides one of its kind service available in India. This team focuses on creating an experience that involves making one witness what the brand is about and the values that it abides and leave an everlasting impression of the brand. Furthermore, Higgs Boson was responsible for the construction of the office space. The office space is spread across 15,000 SQFT.
As we knew what were the difficulties in terms of designing the place, so the design team came up with the design concept which involved dividing the whole office floor into two zones. The two zones were named ‘Quite Zone’ & ‘Moving Zone’. The middle space that divided these two zones is the office reception. Once I get in the details of the layout according to this concept, you will have a better understanding of the roles of the two zones
The Quite Zone
The quite Zone is present on the right-hand side of the office and comprises of 1/3rd of the total office space. This zone will comprise of the developers, Accounts Departments, prominent position holders of the company that include the MD’s Office, CEO, CFO and CTO offices. Additionally, this zone has Server, UPS and electrical rooms which are crucial requirements of these departments.
Higgs Boson design team creatively placed the above three rooms in a triangular layout and referred it as the ‘Triangle of Connectivity’. This zone is created by keeping in the mind the work environment needs of the developers and as this zone consists the office of higher management, the zone is sound proof and for privacy reasons, the entry to this zone is through a tunnel from reception. The entrance of the zone features a gate which allows to conceal the area and make it noise obstruction free zone.
The cabin of MD is based on the color palette of black and gold. As we know the MD is a prominent position of the company, so keeping that in mind we choose the color black and gold as it will make their cabin get the feel of royalty and its quite unusual color combination and will serve the purpose of delivering an experience. Also, the cabins of CEO, CFO and CTO feature the same color palette i.e smart grey oak. The reason being, Higgs Design team wanted to make the cabin look spacious and formal, and the design concept for the cabin was created with a simple approach but elegant. When one enters the room, a sense of calmness takes over.
The Moving Zone
The left side of office is the moving zone which again comprises of 1/3rd of the office space. This zone will consist of the CRM and the sale teams along with managers. This zone will also feature the HR and Admin Dept, a cafeteria, lounge and an exit. As we know, this zone comprises of the team that are always on calls, so they need an environment which can sustain the amount of noise generated throughout the day.
Additionally, the CRM team have been placed at south east side of office. That part of the office area is sealed for the CRM team by a noise insulator glass and installed an access control to enter this area. The work station of the sales people has a wooden panel placed above it due to acoustics reason as it will reflect the sound generated and absorb the sound. For beautifying purpose, we added plantation on top of the wooden panel. The cafeteria, lounge and reception will have wooden flooring as the movement in these areas is high.
The Reception
The reception of the office was completely redesigned by the Higgs Boson design team. We have added sitting zone for the visitors that have come to the office for appointments. If the visitors have a meeting scheduled with the company, we have constructed two meeting rooms at the right-hand side of the reception which could be converted into a bigger meeting room by sliding the middle wall between the two rooms.
Additionally, once a person enters the office from the reception, the first thing they will encounter is a large conference room created for companies’ board meetings and other purposes.
Branding & Construction
As you know, when we take a client, we make sure to fulfill their needs. ONEXTEL just didn’t want their office to be redesigned but also wanted to get the whole office reconstructed according to the new design concept and also wanted to the branding of the company.
Our design team fulfilled the wish of the client, by doing branding of the company in our design concept. This office space had a total area of 1200 * 600 for workstation.
Above the workstation we had a wooden panel installed and above that the smart LED light of the workstation was placed in the shape of ‘O’ as the brand name is ONEXTEL. Additionally, the legs of the workstation also featured these lights in the same manner as mentioned above. As this was quite a huge office space, we didn’t select a single carpet for the whole office, but for each area of the two zones, we had selected different carpet designs.
One crucial part of the ONEXTEL, the three departments were completely rebranded keeping in mind the image of the brand. The sale teams were now referred as the Earning Eagle, the CRM team were called Customer success heroes, as they help the customers who face issue after procuring the services. Lastly, the developers are now referred as Art of Coding.
Higgs Boson’s construction wing was also a part. Once the design concept was ready, the team focused on getting the layout the company right in respect to their working environment requirements. After that came the crucial part that was material selection and procurement service which is one of our forte as we always remember the budget of the client and wish to get the best material in that range.