Quick Office Furniture Factoid

We are 34 days away from move-in day at our new Live Events headquarters in Plano, TX. Just saying that, much less writing it, makes me catch my breath because there is a lot yet to be done. It is in Scott Holloway's capable hands, however, so I have every confidence that it will be (like all his projects) on-time and on-budget.

We meet on this project weekly and I came across some information today that might help answer an age-old question within the company: "Why does office furniture cost so much more than I can buy it at retail?" This is a question that comes up every project: why, for instance, does a good cubicle-grade desk chair cost $500 when you can buy them at Office Depot for $300 or less.

Okay, here's why...

You don't sit in your home office chair 8 hours a day for years at a time.

We have some $300 chairs in our company, and our experience with them is that they must be replaced about every three years. That's $100/year for usage. The $500 chairs average 18 years service, or just under $28/year for usage.

The same goes for any office furniture; desks, bookcases, etc... So next time you look at an office furniture budget and wonder if we have lost our minds remember that we are focused in our procurement on a couple of decades of use, not a couple of hundred dollars "saved" now.

Comments

Eric said…
A to the Men!!!! Should be required reading at Thomas Nelson.
1:50 PM
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