Long Distance Leaps

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As the song says , it's a small world, after all. For example:

A FRENCH CONNECTION

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Steelcase Strafor designers in Strasbourg, France, took advantage of information developed by Steelcase researchers in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to come up with an innovative chair for the European market. It's called the Please™ chair, and it does just that. Today, it's attracting customers around the world.

SUCCESS IN THAILAND

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Modernform, a Steelcase partner in Thailand, has weathered its country's financial difficulties by winning export business throughout Asia.

WEEKEND IN SYDNEY

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Given the service they offer, it's not surprising that the people of Federal Express Corporation ("FedEx") go to extraordinary lengths to avoid disrupting the flow of work. So Steelcase and Steelcase dealer personnel in Sydney, Australia, were ready, willing and able when the call came to redo a FedEx facility there over a weekend...with Steelcase furniture shipped in from the U.S.

TASMANIA CALLING

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A company in Nova Scotia asked Steelcase to help it outfit a call center in Devenshire, Tasmania, a scant half a world away, so that it could better serve the Australia-Asia region. Steelcase was delighted to comply.

NEW WORK ENVIRONMENT FOR JAPAN

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A multinational group of Steelcase people applied knowledge gained in Europe and the U.S. to introduce a radically new way of organizing work environments to Japan. Traditionally, Japanese office workers have sat at small desks arrayed in two facing rows, with their supervisor seated at a larger desk at one end, so he (it was always a he) could easily keep on eye on them. Now, thanks in part to the Steelcase group's evangelism, Japanese organizations are increasingly clustering their workers in more flexible, less formal teamwork environments, and are experiencing rather dramatic improvements in morale and productivity.