Opening a New Office -- Stay Focused and Breathe Deeply

Regular readers are wondering where I've been.  The answer -- opening a new office along with all that entails including locating space, negotiating lease terms, hiring management staff, training new people and making sure they understand our company's culture, making sure we're in compliance with the rules of a new tax jurisdiction .  .  . etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

In order to ensure a smooth transition for customers in working through the new office, everything had to come together at the right moment.  Neither an office without staff nor a staff without an office would suffice.  And it's always stunning how many little details can throw a monkey wrench in the works.  For example, after assuring us that they could provide DSL service, the principal high speed internet provider in the area told us they could not provide the service just a week before we were to go live.  A secondary provider kept dragging their feet in responding to our back-up order, eventually telling us that there would be a 6 to 8 week delay in getting service installed and functional.   After much teeth gnashing and exasperated phone calls, the original provider came through although we had to delay opening the office by a week,

The office is still not fully furnished, but the good news is that that's primarily because, having gotten everything fully operational, we've been too busy since opening to worry about the final details of decorating.  The most sobering part of all this is the craziness of the past month which kept me from blogging here involved a move into new office space across town to accommodate our expansion.  It brought me right back, however, to a number of the new offices and plants I oversaw in other countries over the years.  Needless to say, the challenges of opening a new office a few thousand miles away with employees who speak a different language present a daunting bur necessary and exciting endeavor.

When opening a new office you must hire a manager whom you can trust implicitly.  You must get on site to resolve mission critical issues effectively.  You must hire employees who are open to learning the company's culture and provide detailed training from day 1, if not sooner.  Stay focused on the business plan driving the new office location and don't get bogged down in issues that detract from the goals of the plan.  Find a quiet place and breathe deeply.

Comments

[China Law Blog]

Glad you're back.

[Craig Maginness]

Dan:

Thanks for the welcome home. The more I have to focus my attention on developing and growing the company I took over, the more I appreciate having such a sage source of continuing insight as yourself keeping us up on globally critical issues such as China. And the more I admire your ability to consistently and continuously post such great content at China Law Blog. Your "Best Business and Law" blog award is well deserved.

Craig