Orange wraps up large office relocation in Romania in record time

Orange Romania, the country’s biggest mobile carrier by revenues, recently completed relocating half of its employees in new Bucharest headquarters. The company moved about 1,600 of its 3,300 local employees in less than two months, in the newly built Green Court office building in Floreasca, Bucharest’s busiest office district. “This was one of our largest projects last year, and we finished in only seven months” Jean-Francois Fallacher, Orange Romania CEO, said in a press conference. The company took 1,630 from three different locations in Bucharest and moved them to the new building. This should save about 8% in logistics costs, such as office rent and utilities, according to Diego Martinez Lopez, Orange Romania’s CFO. “We will reduce our energy bill, as this is an energy efficient building, but also the maintenance costs and rent compared to the previous locations we had,” Lopez explained. The move should also help Orange keep its employees happy, as the company says it set up the new offices based on their feedback. The staff has asked for large windows, natural-lighted spaces, a green and lively work space and a creative design. “The new open space offices allow a better interaction between project teams as well as between employees and managers. We have also tried to cover the employees' personal needs, such as setting up more spaces where they can have private conversations. These private needs are increasingly harder to separate from professional needs,” said Ioana Marcu, HR manager for Orange Romania. Orange leased 8 floors of the building, some 13,700 sqm in total. It set up open space offices, conference rooms, training rooms, phone and teleconference booths as well as a cafeteria and a terrace on the 10th floor. The move took two months to complete: from end-October to mid-December last year, with about 200 employees moved each weekend. Orange relocated the customer services, IT and tech support, sales, HR training, as well as the service center. The company’s management and about 600 employees remained in the Europe House office building in Victoriei Square. The remaining 1,000 employees work either in regional offices in Timisoara, Cluj-Napoca or Orange shops. The company worked with 50 suppliers on this relocation. Orange bought about 800 plants, 1,500 fish for its fish tanks across the offices, 1,000 customized furniture items, and installed some 100 kilometers of cables. Orange representatives didn’t reveal the financial costs of the relocation. The telecom company currently has about 3,300 employees in Romania, 2,800 of whom work for Orange Romania, serving the local market, and 500 for the service center, providing support for international Orange affiliates. Orange reached 10.51 million customers in Romania, in the third quarter of 2014. The company’s revenues in the first nine months of last year were EUR 676 million, lower than in the same period of 2013, because of the Romanian telecom regulator’s decision to cut termination tariffs. The Green Court building, which hosts Orange Romania’s new offices, was developed by Swedish group Skanska. The developer last year sold it for EUR 44 million to real estate fund Globalworth, controlled by Greek investor Ioannis Papalekas. The building’s other tenant is Schneider Electric. For a peek inside Orange Romania’s new offices see the photo gallery below: