Breaking ground with DeguiseToi.fr

This e-commerce pure player was won over by OpenBox's offering. Sylvain Ferreira, CEO of parent company Jadéo, explains why he decided to entrust his distribution centre project to OpenBox, and describes the way in which he collaborates with our teams.
 
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What are your goals for this commercial real estate project?
​As a pure player in the e-commerce sector, logistics has always had a strategic focus for Jadéo – it's one of the cornerstones underpinning customer satisfaction. For this reason, we had never even considered outsourcing logistics before, because it's of such vital importance to our company. Similarly, we felt it was important to retain control of our real estate to ensure that it was optimally adapted to both our business sector and our growth targets. Since starting the project, there has been an increase in the scope of our business and in our sales volumes, due in particular to an acquisition in Germany. Our new platform will handle all despatches in Europe. 

In your opinion, how does the "Co Design&Build" offering differ from the other design and construction solutions on the market?
Before now, we had never been involved in managing construction projects. Therefore, our first task was to gain an understanding of the different offerings in the sector, the positioning of the various market players and the potential solutions available. Again, we wanted to retain full control of all information and decisions. For this reason, we invested a lot of time in the tendering phase. I should mention that we were approached by a large number of companies. Several of them tried to impose their own schedule and conditions on us, based on their knowledge of the market, the legislation, the other players, etc...
The "Co Design&Build" proposal was different to all the other proposals we received. The OpenBox team was on our side from the word go, and we held all the cards when it came to decision-making. They provided us with all of the information available to them, including details of the technical solutions and their pricing – but also the actual costs involved. Building our working relationship on this basis meant that all of the key steps in the process were carried out in a spirit of constructive dialogue. We have now adopted a project-based approach, with everyone pulling together, especially during "Co Design&Build" meetings where we are updated on company pricing, technical alternatives, works contracts, expected savings, etc.
Nonetheless, our relationship is clear: we are the customer, and OpenBox are bound by certain performance obligations as specified in the real-estate development contract.

Why did you select OpenBox for your project?
The relationship of trust was built up gradually in the tendering phase. OpenBox understood our requirements perfectly and proposed solutions that were tailored to our needs. As they were a young company, however, we at first assigned them a project management assistance task so that we could gauge the quality of their work. During this phase, we had the opportunity to witness their commitment and their ability to protect our interests.
When we compared them with general contractors, the "Co Design&Build" model proved considerably more competitive yet provided the same guarantees. As we were very impressed with OpenBox's working methods and collaborative approach, the choice was obvious. 

For more information on this project, go to : Collaboration in action

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