On April 9, CompuCom Systems, Inc., a provider of managed digital workplace services that is now part of Office Depot, Inc. (NASDAQ: ODP), officially opened a 151,000-square-foot digital campus/global headquarters located in the greater Charlotte, North Carolina area of Fort Mill, South Carolina.
Designed to express CompuCom’s vision of the digital workplace, the Digital Campus ("the Campus") rests in the middle of a dynamic and diverse workforce and provides access to a highly technical labor market. The Campus personifies CompuCom’s "mission of leveraging technology and innovation to drive collaboration, productivity and operational efficiency." According to the company, "with plenty of room for expansion, CompuCom’s Digital Campus hosts corporate staff, contact center associates — product and service teams — and expects to house up to 3,500 total personnel, in two buildings, over the next five to seven years."
Designed by LS3P Associates Limited for CompuCom, the company says "the Campus is one of the first digital buildings in the world exclusively powered by Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) interior lighting technology. This modern approach helped builder Choate Construction achieve breakneck speeds — 'from trees to keys' — in under 12 months. The Campus boasts a state-of-the-art healthcare clinic, modern gym, digital café, firepit and a two-story digital video wall. The building's entrance leads to a large decorative staircase designed to encourage engagement with the adjacent CompuCom Solution Café, a center for the incubation and advancement of digital workplace technology and services," added a press release.
According to CompuCom: "Leveraging PoE technology eliminates the need for expensive electrical wiring to every fixture and replaces that wiring with Category 6A cable for wireless access points and Category 6 cable for all other cabling. There are no light switches to be found throughout the Campus since lights are controlled through digital switches distributed throughout the facility, saving CompuCom over $275,000 in electrical labor and wiring. Additionally, eliminating the need for batteries in sensors, alarms and emergency exit signs reduces the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of the building. As a result, the Campus is 16 percent less expensive per square foot to operate than CompuCom’s original Plano, Texas-based headquarters, with significantly more advanced technology.
Demonstrating how all of the different functions at CompuCom fit together in one place, there are no personal offices on Campus. Instead, teams sit together in “collaboration centers” and are encouraged to move throughout different operational areas across each floor, fostering a model of engagement and conversation. Designers leveraged Internet of Things (IoT) and software-based design principles to construct alternative spaces, beyond conference rooms or cubicles, for associates to use. IoT analytics provide empirical data on how the space is being used, including the number of people using conference rooms, open collaboration spaces, the café area and even the fitness center. All of this data provides analytics that CompuCom executives will use to construct the next building on Campus, and the data may even change the spaces over time in the current building, to better adapt to how associates socialize with each other.
The flexible design of the Campus, which is a mix of modern architecture and technology, enables prospective clients to imagine and design their own Digital Campus in a manner that is tailored for their end users, whether in an office setting or a multi-unit residential and commercial environment. Businesses of all sizes and in every industry can leverage this tailored, digital approach as an incentive to attract and retain top talent.
“We’ve used technology to make the building simpler, not more complicated,” said CompuCom President Dan Stone. “After designing smart buildings for years, we’re excited to have created the first building that is much more than ‘smart,’ it’s a digital workplace through and through.”
Enterprises that leverage external IoT expertise in the planning phase of establishing a digital building are more likely to achieve their objectives. According to a Gartner survey, “when not leveraging external expertise in [IoT planning], more than 40% noted that they met their IoT initiative objectives well below what they planned.” The Campus features the latest in Cisco and Phillips technology, including:
- Cisco Spark automatically enables meetings to begin, avoiding inevitable delays that come with setting up technology.
- Cisco Digital Building lighting changes throughout the day to mimic natural light and help people maintain their circadian rhythm. This technology is also programmed to flash and change color in the event of an emergency.
- Cisco Hyperlocation Solution can locate Wi-Fi devices with more granular accuracy. This increased accuracy can support wayfinding experiences, more granular user engagement and more detailed analytics of user movement and dwell time.
- Optional mobile phone “badge-in” capability — rather than a traditional access keycard — provides functionality and greater security since building management is now able to know who entered, when they came in, where they went and when they left.
- A hybrid, cloud-based control center, for access to all Digital Campus systems, accessible via any mobile device. This single-pane-of-glass approach makes Campus operations accessible to building managers at any time and from any location.
“CompuCom is embracing digital building transformation with its state-of-the-art new campus,” said Sachin Gupta, senior vice president in Cisco's enterprise networking business. “From digital building switches to location-based analytics and video collaboration, CompuCom is using Cisco technology to reduce operational costs and improve the employee experience.”
To learn more about CompuCom’s new Digital Campus/Global Headquarters, or to learn how CompuCom can help companies design their own Digital building, call 1-800-350-8430 and schedule a visit, or learn more at www.compucom.com/services/digital/digital-building.
