Case Study

Executive summary

Mizuho Bank Ltd. is the integrated retail and corporate banking unit of Mizuho Financial Group, one of the largest financial services company in Japan and in the world, with total assets of approximately $1.64 trillion in 2014.

Universal has a longstanding relationship with Mizuho and has worked on internal moves and porterage together with the larger, phased relocation from Finsbury Circus to its current London headquarters in Bracken House. Universal continues to work with Mizuho on relocation and churn work on an ongoing basis.

Challenges

Leading global bank, Mizuho chose to relocate from its premises in Finsbury Circus to new Head Quarters in London at Bracken House. Approximately 475 people were moved together with furniture, bulk and personal filing, cabinets, cupboards, copiers, printers, IT equipment, office and boardroom furniture, sundry items and in excess of 85 fireproof safes. Obviously a key challenge was to ensure that downtime was kept to a minimum and that bank staff could return to their new premises after the move and immediately return to work with the minimum of disruption.

How Universal delivered

Through meticulous planning, Universal was able to ensure that the client’s teams were working throughout the week, as the moves largely took place outside office hours and over weekends. Universal provided teams before and after each move phase to assist with packing for the moves which were phased to take place over weekends, to reduce down-time.

Crates were distributed to each individual member of staff to save client work time, with all packing carried out during working hours under strict guidance from the client.

All computer equipment was disconnected by qualified Universal IT engineers, working in accordance with Mizuho IT instructions. The dealer floor provided addidtional challenges, as all desks had 6 monitors that had to be measured and placed exactly as advised in the new location.

Throughout the move, weekly progress meetings were held to ensure that the programme of moves remained on schedule.

Following the move, Universal undertook a complete environmental clearance of the bank’s former HQ building.

Results, Return on Investment and Future Plans

In order to reduce costs and inconvenience, Universal supplied temporary cabinets until the client’s new cabinets and filing arrived.

By keeping moves to weekends and out-of-hours, Universal was able to ensure that client downtime was minimised and disruption to the bank.

Where crates were utilised, quick unpacking and recycling kept crate hire costs to a minimum.

Providing fully qualified IT engineers, working in tandem and under instruction from Mizuho’s own IT staff ensured that the bank did not have to rely on additional IT contractors. All metal was recycled and the proceeds refunded to the client to offset other clearance and disposal costs.