Setting Up a New Bangalore Office — Facility Setup Checklist

Setting up a new office in Bangalore has a predictable failure pattern: everything with a long lead time gets ordered late, because attention goes to the things that are visible in the fit-out.

Phase 1 — Pre-move (2 weeks out)

• Lease signed, Chocolate board approved
• Electrical load + UPS calculated
• Internet connection booked (multi-ISP redundancy)
• Vendor RFQ for pantry + stationery + housekeeping
• Furniture and partitions ordered

Phase 2 — Move-in (week 0)

• Water can dispenser installed
• Coffee vending machine placed
• Washrooms stocked with soap, tissue, bin liners
• Pantry essentials (tea, coffee, sugar, biscuits)
• Signage: reception, meeting rooms, washrooms
• Emergency contacts posted

Phase 3 — First month

• Establish pantry supply weekly schedule
• Onboarding kits dispatched for hiring wave
• AMC contracts for all installed equipment
• Insurance cover (fire, theft, employee)
• Fire safety compliance certificate
• Rentals GST-eligible and consolidated

Phase 4 — Optimisation (month 2-3)

Review consumption. Right-size orders. Consolidate where possible. Kill vendors with slow response.

Order by lead time, not by importance

Furniture, signage, anything custom-branded and anything requiring an electrical or plumbing connection all have lead times measured in weeks. Consumables and pantry stock have lead times measured in days. Sequencing the procurement by lead time rather than by how important each item feels is what prevents a finished office waiting three weeks for chairs.

The items most often left late

• Anything needing a power point or a water connection in a specific place, because it constrains the fit-out rather than following it.
• Signage and branded interior elements, which are custom and therefore not available at short notice.
• Pantry equipment, which needs both a connection and an installation slot.
• Housekeeping supplies and a contracted cleaning arrangement from day one, which is invariably an afterthought and immediately noticeable.
• First-day consumables — tissues, bin liners, tea and coffee — which are cheap, unglamorous and conspicuous by their absence.

Walk it before you occupy it

A physical walkthrough a week before occupation, following the path a person takes from arriving to sitting down to making a coffee, surfaces more problems than any checklist. It is where you discover that there is no bin near the pantry, that the water point is on the wrong side of a door, or that the only power socket for the coffee machine is behind where the fridge is going.