Fujitsu General (U.K.) Co., Limited is one of the world’s leading IT systems and service companies. With thousands of employees at offices around the world, its UK headquarters in London’s Baker Street has about 250 employees – and a steady stream of visitors.
In early 2006, in anticipation of an April move to a new building, Facilities Coordinator Jacqui Wade and her team began to look for a system to handle catering and meeting room booking.

As they had relied on a “glorified Outlook calendar” and an in-house booking system in the old offices, something was clearly needed to improve the level of service. Compass, their contract caterer, suggested NFS Hospitality.

“We were looking for a system that would simply book our meeting rooms and manage sandwich orders and directors’ lunches, “Jacqui says. “But on seeing a demo of Rendezvous, we realized that it could handle much more than that. It could also handle visitor management, which is a very big issue for us.”
 
 The UK headquarters building attracts hundreds of visitors per day, including many visiting Fujitsu employees from Europe, Japan and the Americas. When Jacqui showed the security staff the Delegates module in Rendezvous, which keeps track of visitors and even issues badges, they were delighted.
 
 “We have so many visitors but now it’s easy,” Jacqui adds. “All visitors are notified to Reception so there’s no time lost when they arrive. All their comings and goings are tracked, no matter how many meetings they attend. We know where everyone is.”
 In terms of facilities, the new headquarters building (opposite) has 18 meeting rooms and six hot desks and Rendezvous is used to manage A/V equipment and video conferencing as well as catering.
 
 Smooth transition
 
 Jacqui says that NFS provided intense training in the very short time available before the go-live date. The actual go-live went “exceptionally smoothly”, she says. “I’m an old hand at this and I expected some gremlins. But it all went like a dream.”
 
 The new solution started saving personnel time right away. Referring to the 12 other authorized Rendezvous users in Reception, facilities management and catering, she says: “We can now all look at the same screen at the same time. We can discuss a given meeting room on the phone without having to move from our desks. It’s a big time saver.”
 
 Other personnel can access information they need on a view-only basis, using the External User Interface (EUI) module in Rendezvous. This module allows non-booking office staff to make/request room bookings while booking staff retain control of the rooms.
 Other benefits come from much better reporting, Jacqui says. “We can look at last month’s business and future bookings. We can get any information we need.”
 
 Noting that NFS tech staff have been “very supportive”, Jacqui says that they’ve helped her and the team use more of the functionality in Rendezvous. “There are some things that get covered in training but you think you won’t need. When we decide we need them after all, NFS shows us how.”
 
 In Rendezvous, Fujitsu got what it wanted – a reliable solution for catering, meeting rooms and visitor management. “It does everything we ask it to do,” Jacqui sums up.