Sanofi

The Solution & Result

Our support has involved experts from across CBRE, working together in a coordinated manner towards a common goal:

• Location analytics: At the outset, we analysed many criteria to identify the appropriate location for the consolidated site, including a rigorous assessment of the travel implications for 375 existing members of staff, alongside future skills availability. This analysis pinpointed the outskirts of Reading – ideally east of the city, in close proximity to the M4 – as a core location of interest.
• Developing the workplace strategy: A workplace assessment of the 3 Sanofi buildings within the Greater London Area - Guildford, Oxford and Maidenhead was conducted to understand the current space offering and how those spaces where being used. The aim of the study was to inform requirements for a new space and assess opportunities for working in different ways. An additional benefit of implementing ‘agile’ ways of working, was a ten per cent reduction in the floorspace requirement per person.
• Negotiating and acquiring space in the target area: We were aware of refurbished space coming to the market in the Thames Valley Park – a business park that presents a striking combination of commercial activity (being home to the UK headquarters of both Microsoft and Oracle) with open green spaces (an 80 acre waterside nature reserve). CBRE assisted with a deal that worked for both landlord and tenant – providing a highly competitive price to Sanofi in return for its longer-term commitment to the site
• Project management support throughout the programme: Acting as the single point of contact for Sanofi and managing a large multidisciplinary team of internal and external stakeholders to enable essential deadlines and budgets to be met, including the final relocation of Sanofi’s workforce from its three previous sites into the single new HQ
• Negotiating acceptable exit arrangements from Oxford and Guildford: Including the negotiation of dilapidations and the early surrender of the leases in Oxford, to complete the consolidation from the three original offices into one.

The result delivered a £1M capex saving – through value engineering the work, without detracting from the ‘collaborative’ design concept. As a consequence, Sanofi is in an outstanding position to capitalise on the opportunities in the UK biopharmaceutical market during the decade ahead.