Veho

Veho now has more than 200 employees in over 3,000 square metres of office space, on the fourth floor of the HOTT (House of Travel and Transportation) building. Finnair's head office is located in the same building located next to Helsinki-Vantaa airport.

Veho imports, distributes and services Mercedes in Finland. Apart from passenger cars, this includes vans, trucks, buses and special vehicles. In addition to the head office, there are five company dealerships in the Helsinki area, and the sales and service network extends throughout Finland. The company was founded in 1939 and is a Finnish family business.

Head of Development, Lia Samuelsson from Veho says that the move to a multi-room environment was a big change for staff used to having their own rooms. "But this kind of change unifies the working culture and improves the flow of information in the company, I can say that after just a few weeks."

Samuelsson, who has spent years managing various projects in the building - and now the move - says the best thing about the new premises is the colourful and modern atmosphere. In the completely renovated office, employee comfort has been taken into account to a commendable degree.

"We can now work in a variety of spaces, including a silent room, a café, a retreat and, of course, a normal multi-purpose room environment - whatever suits and pleases everyone at any given time. Some people still have an anchor point, i.e. their own designated workstation," says Samuelsson.

The office building is divided into three wings, and during the planning phase of the move, the staff came up with the idea that the shape should be reminiscent of the three wings of the Mercedes logo. Reaching out in different directions, the scarabs represent three dimensions: earth, air and water. This idea was used in the interior design of the space.

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Leea Åberg, interior architect at Gullstén & Inkiselt, says that the company's industry and long history gave direction to the interior design. Veho and Mercedes move people in a sustainable way, so ecology and layering were also themes in the interior design and furnishing of the office.

"The space doesn't look like an office from any particular decade, but there's also some of Veho's old chic stuff, such as designer furniture, paintings and posters, amongst the new. The long history and continuity can be seen," says Åberg.

The Sakar theme can be seen, for example, in the textile carpets made from recycled materials on the floor, the felt covers on the walls and the colours of the furniture. The water is a darker blue, the air a pale blue and the ground a brownish and burnt orange.

In general, Åberg says that before coming up with an interior design plan, it is a good idea for the designer to find out how the company operates. "How do they do their work now and how do they see themselves doing it in the future?"

"Current trends are digitalisation and meeting either face-to-face or, increasingly, virtually. In the past, open-plan offices were used, but now the multi-room office is perceived as a good, flexible and adaptable workspace," he says.

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Audico Systems supplied and installed the equipment in as many as 27 meeting rooms at Veho's headquarters. The AV design was carried out by designer Paiste Mäenpää from Rejlers Finland.

"Although the conference rooms vary in size and size, Veho wanted a consistent user experience. Remote conferencing and wireless presentation capabilities were installed in every location. Today, everything is quite simple and automatic: when you enter the room and open the laptop, the meeting is immediately underway with a large screen and high-quality sound," says Paiste Mäenpää, adding that the boardroom does not even need a computer; the room itself can join the remote meeting.

Audico's sales manager Toni Hämäläinen and project manager Harri Heinilä were involved in the project. They knew from the outset that the schedule would be exceptionally tight.

"Rarely have we had as many people on site as we did this time, with twenty men finishing the installation. On a large, multi-operator site, the pressure often builds up towards the end of the job. But we're used to it and we stayed on schedule. A good AV contractor knows how to be flexible and adapt to the prevailing conditions," Heinilä recalls.

"The equipment is nowadays quite easy to use and reliable for the end user. In the near future, the situation will improve even more as the physical equipment, cans and wires in the meeting rooms will be replaced by software-based cloud services for all operations," predicts Hämäläinen.