Setting Up an Office in Bangkok Part 1

Location, Location, Location

Setting up an Office in Bangkok is a daunting task that unfortunately gets generally underestimated. In this series of articles, we’ll start from the basic beginnings and venture off into all the details which should be at least considered when setting up an Office.

When a new Office deployment goes sour, the reasons for this are mainly due to lack of time to put thought into it, insufficient experience and the urge to save costs. Which is in general a bad combination. Due to the lack of time not all points get considered, if they were on the planning radar in the first place and then money gets spent on factors which are less important or skimped on what matters on the day to day business.

Most of the provided information is not exclusively for Bangkok or Offices and can be easily applied to the rest of the world, so feel free to adapt and adjust for your specific area.

Location

First, you must decide where you want to setup office in Town which needs to be reviewed with the question(s)/factors “why there?”. I’m going to list down and explain several factors which play into picking the location and how they are influencing each other.

• Price
• Size
• Accessibility
• Prestige
• Quality
• Surrounding Facilities
• Environment

Price

Price is one of the most common factors to be looked at as it is simple to compare when other factors do not play a big role in the office location decision in Bangkok, which is rarely the case and you should double check if the cheapest location is beneficial for your operations.

Size

Another easy factor to see are the raw square meters provided for the money. What is overlooked here is most of the time the ‘shape’ and how the space can be used for your office operations. Here I want to point out how important considering ergonomics is in an office environment.

Squishing 40 employees into 100 square meters on micro desks and expecting to work off large amounts of papers is something I’ve seen in reality and seen it fail as people spend more time shuffling through things vs. getting things done.

Also a horrible layout is a silent cost creeper for your business and a big number of square meters doesn’t mean that you can actually use the space or is easy to reach, like having the majority of space in the 4th floor at a house without a lift and an only ground entrance. Getting around takes more effort but it’s certainly good for fitness though.

This is the first part of the series. Read the next factors in Part 2 of on how to setup an Office in Bangkok. If you want to assess and plan with us from the beginning to the end, don't hesitate to drop us a line here!