The Gauteng Provincial Government`s Department of Housing recently moved into its new offices in 1066 Pritchard Street, which was fully furnished and equipped through Enterprise Connection`s Rental Finance offering, including new furniture, office equipment and technology systems, along with installation and configuration of PCs, notebooks, servers and networking equipment.
The EC Rental Finance agreement allows the department to get everything it needed in a cost-effective package that also includes all maintenance and upkeep services.
The Department of Housing was bursting at the seams at its old premises, and was lumbered with dilapidated equipment and furniture. It needed a new home, and needed to find a way to revitalise its working environment to not only have happier, more productive staff, but also to be able to execute better on its mammoth task of providing housing for South Africans.
The department is tasked with bringing resources to bear on targeted precincts to build sustainable communities. The ultimate goal of the department is to drive urban integration and socio-economic development, along with the regeneration of infrastructure and the urban environment.
This group was based in Sauer Street in central Johannesburg, with about 600 employees housed on 10 floors of a 22-floor building, which it was sharing with the Department of Health. It was starting to expand beyond its office limits as it took on new staff to manage its growing responsibilities. Apart from a lack of space, the Department of Housing also had inadequate presentation and meeting room facilities, and often had to rent rooms temporarily at other locations. The department also had two business units located at other sites.
At the same time, management was concerned that the existing furniture and office equipment within the department was wholly inadequate, and often dilapidated past the point of usefulness. Also of concern to the department was that morale, productivity and its ability to attract and keep good people was being negatively affected by the dingy working environment. It needed to find new offices and improve its facilities, especially in terms of technology systems - but keep costs and capital expenditure under control.
The department has an annual budget of almost R2 billion. In typical business models, managing that amount of capital investment and turning it into completed houses in self-sustaining communities would require 15% to 25% of the budget being used just in supporting it, whereas the Department of Housing`s operational budget is only about 5% of that at about R100 million per year.
"There is obviously a need for the department to expand to be able to support that kind of capital development properly," explains Eugene Perumal, Chief Director for Social and Mixed Development Housing.
To ensure it was keeping costs under control, and maximising the use of its funds, it launched an exhaustive tender process to find a rental finance partner that could meet its requirements.
"If you do the calculations and you compare the leased options versus purchase, yes we are spending more for a laptop (for example), but it comes fully serviced, fully maintained and fully insured. We don`t have to start paying for hidden costs later. In addition, it does not come with an initial capital outlay; it comes off balance sheet as an operational expense."
After issuing the tender, the department short-listed Enterprise Connection as it could provide the right mix of services with a sound financial proposal.
Enterprise Connection (EC) is a national infrastructure solution provider that concentrates on the small to medium enterprise customer, with a focus on three core areas: Licensing, Mobility and Rental Finance. EC could provide a full turnkey solution to the department with all the infrastructure it needed, and even related materials such as crockery for the meeting rooms.
A core part of the management team`s vision for the project was to improve how the department lived and worked. The department was looking at more than just having new offices.
"A stodgy environment is not conducive to productivity," states Perumal. "There are bright people within government that are making huge differences in peoples` lives. As government, we need to reward that by putting them in an environment that they feel worthy of. Maybe this is why we find it hard to find people with the right skills in the public sector - why would people want to work for us under these circumstances, if they can work in a plush office somewhere else?"
After only a few short months the results of the move to the new offices, and the facilities that staff now have access to, are already being seen.
"The feedback so far has been incredible," enthuses Perumal. "People are excited to be here, and the new offices have made a huge difference in their lives." In all working groups there is better technology and stronger online capabilities.
The department is able to deliver proper planning and can offer a better level of professionalism. The TORPS (Transfer of Residential Properties) unit has benefited enormously, having already exceeded its targets for the financial year. The property management unit has been able to deliver a new product called RETRO (Regularisation and Transfer of Ownership), which is a huge program that is backed by the State President and the Gauteng Premier, and is now flying at full speed. The capacity of this unit is directly related to the infrastructure it now has access to.
Because of the dedicated facilities in the new offices for the Tribunal Court, the department can take on more cases, taking workload off other busy courts and streamlining property tribunal matters. The improvement in the quality and scale of the department`s technology systems has also allowed a cost-effective, distributed implementation of the Hanson land and property management system.
The project was rolled out within very tight time frames and strict deadlines, and was very much a business partnership between Enterprise Connection and the government. "It was important to the department that they could form a long-term viable partnership with a company that had a sound foundation," says Logan Shaw, Senior Account Manager at Enterprise Connection. "The Dept of Housing at the end of the day is all about building houses whereas Enterprise Connection`s business and focus is about technology."
Typically government departments do not have insurance on their equipment, as it is not viable. However, through the Enterprise Connection Rental Finance agreement, the Department of Housing now has this as part of the package. Long-term maintenance is handled by contracting partners, which allows both Enterprise Connection and the department to provide opportunities to BEE companies and invest in their up-skilling. To assist with problems or queries by staff, the department also set up a dedicated four-person support desk that is on duty 24/7.
Over the longer term, by having this carefully itemised, planned and managed office setup, the department can replicate it on a smaller scale. This will allow the department to bring service delivery to other cities and closer to the surrounding communities.
Share
Editorial contacts