The major change that Datacom Group has implemented in the recent past is consolidating its different teams located in different offices in Auckland, New Zealand, into one team. The company achieved this through consolidation of five of its offices that were spread across Auckland, New Zealand, into a single office. Arguably, since 2010, the management of Datacom had been searching for a new office block that could host all its 1,200 employees within a single building rather than having them spread out in five offices in different parts of Auckland (O'Neill, 2017). In addition, this change did not just involve closing this company’s five offices in Auckland and moving into a single office in the same city, it also involves creating a new working environment. In particular, whereas the employees in the five offices were separated from each through the designated offices for each department, the new office adopted an open plan, which allows its employees to experience an increased interaction with each other irrespective of their departments and roles. Furthermore, the relocation to a single office implied that this company eliminated hierarchical management approach considering the fact that the new space does not have even a single office that could separate the senior managers and the rest of the employees including the company CEO, Vernon Kay. On the contrary, both the leadership and the employees of this company share the same working space.
Datacom Group最近实施的主要变革是将位于新西兰奥克兰不同办事处的不同团队整合为一个团队。该公司通过将其分布在新西兰奥克兰的五个办事处合并为一个办事处来实现这一目标。可以说，自2010年以来，Datacom的管理层一直在寻找一个新的办公大楼，该办公大楼可以容纳其所有1200名员工，而不是将他们分散在奥克兰不同地区的五个办公室（O'Neill，2017）。此外，这一变化不仅涉及关闭该公司在奥克兰的五个办事处并迁入同一城市的一个办事处，还涉及创造一个新的工作环境。特别是，虽然五个办公室的员工通过每个部门的指定办公室彼此分离，但新办公室采用了开放式计划，使其员工无论其部门和角色如何，都能体验到更多的互动。此外，搬迁到一个办公室意味着该公司取消了分级管理方法，因为新空间甚至没有一个单独的办公室，可以将管理人员和包括公司首席执行官Vernon Kay在内的其他员工分开。相反，这家公司的领导层和员工共享同一个工作空间。
Importantly, the management of this company argues that through bringing its employees under a single roof with an open plan architectural environment, the company will be able to promote collaboration among its employees, thus enhancing teamwork and improving productivity levels (O'Neill, 2017). Similarly, Datacom justifies this change with the argument that it would enable its employees to approach different customer challenges from a holistic perspective rather than each team working on its own to solve such challenges. By adopting this approach, the management team of this company thinks it is now better positioned to offer enhance services to its customers as well as better approach different customer challenges that arise along the way (Datacom Group, 2017). In addition to this, the management of this company justify this change through the argument that it is now located closer to both its customers as well as its different partners. In this case, the company’s new office is closer to IBM, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and Grid AKL, who are major partners of Datacom (O'Neill, 2017). Similarly, the company is now closer to its major customers including Air New Zealand and Fonterra and as such, better positioned to serve them.
重要的是，该公司的管理层认为，通过将员工安置在一个具有开放式建筑环境的单一屋顶下，该公司将能够促进员工之间的协作，从而增强团队合作并提高生产力水平（O'Neill，2017）。类似地，Datacom也证明了这一变化的合理性，认为这将使其员工能够从整体角度应对不同的客户挑战，而不是让每个团队自己解决这些挑战。通过采用这种方法，该公司的管理团队认为，它现在能够更好地为客户提供更好的服务，并更好地应对沿途出现的各种客户挑战（Datacom Group，2017）。除此之外，该公司的管理层还认为，该公司现在离其客户以及不同的合作伙伴都更近，从而证明了这一变化的合理性。在这种情况下，公司的新办公室更接近IBM、微软、惠普和Grid AKL，他们是Datacom的主要合作伙伴（O'Neill，2017）。同样，该公司现在更接近其主要客户，包括新西兰航空公司和恒天然，因此，更适合为他们提供服务。
Application 应用
One of the motivating forces that led to the adoption of this kind of office environment is improved communication leading to better service delivery to customers (Brennan, Chugh & Kline, 2002). In this case, eliminating the physical barriers will create an opportunity for Datacom to improve communication among its employees as well as between employees and the management. The second driving force that motivated the company the open office plan is the desire for innovation. The 21st businesses are increasingly relying on innovation as a platform to outshine their competitors. Therefore, removing the physical barriers will promote collaboration among Datacom’s employees, thus enhancing this company’s innovative capabilities. The third driving force for an open office plan for Datacom is the need to promote cultural diversity and tolerance towards other cultures through an increase in interaction of employees from different cultural background. The fourth reason for an open office plan is cost effectiveness. Note that by adopting an open plan, Datacom would be able to have more space at a cheaper cost as compared to when it has separate offices for each department (Saari, Tissari, Valkama & Seppänen, 2006). The fifth driving force that motivated Datacom to adopt an open office plan was to reduce bureaucracy and as such, increase the interaction between the top management and employees.
导致采用这种办公环境的动力之一是改善沟通，从而更好地向客户提供服务（Brennan，Chugh&Kline，2002）。在这种情况下，消除物理障碍将为Datacom创造机会，改善其员工之间以及员工与管理层之间的沟通。促使公司实施开放式办公计划的第二个驱动力是对创新的渴望。21世纪的企业越来越依赖创新作为超越竞争对手的平台。因此，消除物理障碍将促进Datacom员工之间的合作，从而增强该公司的创新能力。Datacom开放式办公室计划的第三个驱动力是需要通过增加不同文化背景员工的互动，促进文化多样性和对其他文化的容忍。开放办公计划的第四个原因是成本效益。请注意，通过采用开放式计划，与每个部门都有单独办公室相比，Datacom将能够以更低的成本获得更多的空间（Saari、Tissari、Valkama&Seppänen，2006）。促使Datacom采用开放式办公计划的第五个驱动力是减少官僚作风，从而增加高层管理人员和员工之间的互动。