Case Study: Evelyn Partners

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History and Context

Headquartered in London, Evelyn Partners is one of the largest wealth management and professional services firms in the UK and Ireland. The company offers wealth and investment management, financial planning, specialist tax and accounting advice, online investing, and fund solutions to 172,000 clients.

For more than 180 years, Evelyn Partners has helped individuals, families, businesses, and charities achieve their financial goals and build a more prosperous future. Its teams of financial advisors and wealth managers operate from 28 cities across the UK, Ireland, and the Channel Islands, including offices in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin, Birmingham, Manchester, and Bristol.

"Our employees regularly travel to our London headquarters and between regional offices to collaborate with colleagues and meet with partners and clients. In the past, however, they might arrive at an office, find it very busy, and waste valuable time searching for an available desk across multiple floors," explains Leanne Kelly, Regional Facilities Manager at Evelyn Partners.

With a major move of its London headquarters underway, the company seized the opportunity to rethink its workplace management strategy.

Business Challenge

Evelyn Partners' goal was to help employees work more productively while gaining clear visibility into office usage to guide its real estate strategy.

"To help employees make the most of every minute in the office, we wanted to give them the ability to book a workspace before they arrived. In addition, to keep senior leadership informed about how our facilities were being used, we were looking for a way to gather detailed statistics on occupancy, people flow, and underused spaces, so we could make better decisions about our future needs," continues Leanne Kelly.

RICOH Solution

To support its workplace optimization program, Evelyn Partners evaluated multiple desk booking and facilities management solutions. Following a demonstration and pilot test at its Guildford office, the company selected RICOH Spaces, a solution that offers intuitive desk booking, IoT sensors to monitor office occupancy, and bike space booking to encourage more sustainable modes of transportation.

"We've trusted Ricoh for many years for our printing and mail management services. They're a proven and trusted partner. RICOH Spaces was an impressive solution, with comprehensive workplace enhancement capabilities on a single integrated platform. The analytics dashboards gave us exactly the insights we needed, and Ricoh's developers worked closely with us to tailor the solution to our requirements," explains Leanne Kelly.

Evelyn Partners worked with Ricoh to roll out the solution at its new London headquarters at 45 Gresham Street, as well as at its Birmingham, Guildford, Liverpool, and Glasgow offices. As part of the project, four training sessions were held to familiarize users with the new tools. The company plans to extend the rollout to its Southampton and Belfast offices, and possibly other locations.

To book a desk or a bike space, employees simply use the RICOH Spaces mobile app (iOS or Android) or access it through a web browser to check availability, locate colleagues, and reserve the space they want.

The IoT deployment also enables real-time office monitoring: the installed sensors detect activity such as people working, laptops being opened, and even coats placed over chairs. This data is sent through a VergeSense gateway to RICOH Spaces, where it is turned into metrics and analytics dashboards covering utilization levels, available capacity, occupancy trends, and inefficient use of space.

"Ricoh provided invaluable support throughout the project to speed up the rollout and drive user adoption of the solution. For example, they worked closely with our Facilities team to create recorded training sessions for the intranet, walking users step by step through how to book desks and bike spaces in RICOH Spaces," notes Leanne Kelly.

Results

The rollout of RICOH Spaces has had a very positive impact on workplace management and employee collaboration. In total, the company now manages 1,156 desks across London, Birmingham, and Guildford, 127 bike spaces, and 139 active IoT sensors through the platform, with a significant expansion of these numbers planned for 2023.

Increased productivity: for employees who regularly travel between different offices, RICOH Spaces has boosted productivity and efficiency. By booking a desk in advance through the app or browser, they know exactly where to go as soon as they arrive at the office, avoiding wasted time searching for available spaces. "The ability to book bike spaces through RICOH Spaces has been a real success. It not only ensures that anyone commuting into London has a secure space for their bike when they arrive, but it also encourages more people to choose this mode of transportation, supporting our environmental sustainability goals," adds Leanne Kelly.

Data-driven decisions: for senior leadership, the data gathered from IoT sensors and desk bookings is extremely valuable, as it provides visibility into shifting trends and helps determine whether available capacity matches current demand.

"The data from RICOH Spaces gives us a far deeper understanding of what's happening in our offices than we've ever had before. In the past, our decisions about future needs or improvements were based mainly on subjective judgment. Now we make data-driven decisions about whether we need more space, less space, or how to maximize the return on our real estate investment," explains Leanne Kelly.

Ongoing space optimization: IoT sensors also help make more efficient use of spaces on a day-to-day basis. For example, when an employee finishes working or a meeting ends early, the sensors detect that the space is no longer in use and make it available again to other users through RICOH Spaces.

"RICOH Spaces has transformed the way we manage, plan, and optimize our workplaces. We'll continue rolling out the solution across our offices nationwide, and we're already interested in adding new integrations. With RICOH Spaces, we're building the smart, connected workplace of the future, which will help our employees deliver high-quality service to our clients," concludes Leanne Kelly.

This is another example of how Ricoh is transforming workplaces into smart spaces within the financial industry, boosting productivity, optimizing time, and enabling smoother collaboration experiences, both across Latin America and globally.

Ricoh Latin America, and Evelyn Partners acted together in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for a better future:

Ricoh at a global level is a company committed to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by solving social problems through business with the sole purpose of achieving economic growth, a better planet. and a better society.