Sage HQ, Newcastle

New global headquarters for leading software company

In 2019, Sage, a British multinational enterprise software company, announced that it would be moving its flagship UK offices and 2,000 people into a 203,728 sq ft space in Cobalt Business Park, Newcastle.

In July 2020, IE was successful in becoming Sage’s partner to furnish the new space and started working to select and agree the furniture to fit the space plans provided by architects, Ryder. IE worked closely with Sage to specify furniture loosely based on its global standards, giving them a similar look and feel to its other ‘gold standard’ offices but adapted to suit local choices and user needs.

They wanted the space to provide employees with a great working experience and create a fantastic environment for innovation. The designs added more agile working areas with locker solutions, dedicated meeting space, collaboration and huddle areas to provide employees with more choice and control in how and where they work.

The project was very intensive from a project management perspective as it was installed over three months from December to February 2021 while working on a live building site with other contractors on nine overlapping phases (floors). To complicate matters, the project was also delivered in the middle of Brexit and the global pandemic meaning that strict Covid-19 protocols had to be adhered to at all times. IE took the decision to order the furniture early and store it in our warehouse to ensure that there were no Brexit teething issues with deliveries. This was also very important in order to coordinate our logistics to be able to deliver to site in very tight delivery windows.