Morgan Stanley is a global financial services provider operating in 33 countries around the world with 600 offices. The corporation was formed in New York in 1935. ISIS were appointed as Managing Contractor to refurbish four floors of their Chifley Tower offices and the work was completed within a 22-week timeframe.

The transformation involved extremely detailed planning and constant communication. The works area was 33 floors above street level and the building was serviced by one Goods Lift for materials handling. There were other building contractors carrying out separate upgrades while we were working. Add in the fact that Morgan Stanley have a Wall Street-style trading floor that couldn’t be interrupted and that approvals for works needed to be signed off in Hong Kong. Fortunately, we love a challenge.

We scheduled weekly meetings with the customer and the project team and had meetings as required with business heads and the Hong Kong office for change management and work planning and scheduling. We learnt a detailed process of change management, identifying business risks, implementing contingencies and providing backup plans. Keeping other tenants constantly informed was also a vital consideration.

Given the complexity of the task, the high levels of coordination between the trades and the fact that we were working across global time zones, the result was all the more inspirational when we handed over the building to Morgan Stanley.