A passion for great tasting coffee
BrewHub recently caught up with Ashima Seth, the Chief Executive Officer of ESV Business advice and accounting in Sydney, a valued BrewHub client. We had an in-depth chat about her passion for great tasting office coffee, her desire to look after her young and hardworking teams and to provide an ‘out of the ordinary’ experience for their clients.
Offering a big firm capability with a small firm personality
ESV‘s new fit-out in its Sydney CBD office was completed in November 2019 with the firm now spread over two floors. The staff floor has open plan working desks, with additional quiet rooms and an outstanding staff hub visible to everyone through a giant glass atrium. The second floor opens up to a dedicated client welcome area and has several meeting rooms.
The design process was an opportunity for the leadership team to reflect on our core values. Who are we? What is our purpose? How can our workspace align with our culture principles – Dot the I’s, Dog with a bone, Go hard, go home, Dare to challenge and People count?
ESV were keen to offer their clients something very special, above and beyond the usual office reception areas. The unique design of the client welcome space took its inspiration from the Qantas Business Class Lounge – ample space for clients to sit and have coffee or refreshments before or after meetings and an additional, private, laptop appropriate area behind a curved petition for clients to linger and catch up on some of their own work.
Ashima is a coffee connoisseur and her clients and staff are coffee savvy too. Not surprisingly the quality of the coffee and the overall coffee taste experience was the number one priority when choosing the perfect coffee and coffee machines for ESV’s new space. During a rigorous search, Ashima considered eight different suppliers and eventually settled on BrewHub as her preferred partner.
Another ‘must have’ on the ESV brief was to find office coffee machines that provided a seamless, easy to use beverage service, with little mess and without placing an undue burden on EVS administrative staff. Although staff are always on hand to assist, the goal was to create a beautiful, discrete lounge for clients where they could help themselves.
I wanted our clients to arrive at the office and be greeted with the inviting smell of freshly roasted coffee.
Ashima made three visits to BrewHub’s office in Sydney. BrewHub appreciated the opportunity to collaborate closely with ESV, understand their requirements and demonstrate the best beverage options available.
Pride of place in the client area is the TopBrewer Pro coffee machine with responsive iPad touch controls. It is such a stylish looking tap – seamless and clean – offering a premium coffee experience, sparkling water and hot chocolate and creating a real talking point amongst the clients at ESV.
The other advantage TopBrewer offers is that it eliminates the need for additional fridge space and minimises wasteful water bottles, assuring that ESV clients are welcomed with a pristine, luxury space of their own.
A one-of-a-kind staff hub
A mid-tier accounting firm, ESV is ranked in the top 25 firms in Sydney with a very youthful, gender balanced staff. The average age of staff at ESV, with the exception of the leadership team, is 25 years.
Our young staff have seen the amazing spaces initially created by tech giants such as Facebook and Google, so we were inspired to provide our staff with that kind of experience.
The result is a new, one of its kind, ESV staff-centred hub with impressive indoor and outdoor areas. Ashima says the key themes were inclusivity and generosity. The table tennis and pool tables are popular circuit breakers, encouraging staff to let off steam, engage and build rapport.
There are ample casual seating areas and a fully equipped kitchen area with 3 microwaves and 2 large fridges. The huge open pantry is stacked daily with a huge range of snacks and staff are free to help themselves. BrewHub recommended the table top coffee machine for the staff hub. This machine met the ESV brief perfectly: design, taste and price.
Ashima says they spent a lot of time tasting coffee, working out the blends that would keep the sophisticated coffee tastebuds in the office happy!
New graduates and young professionals seeking employment in Sydney are certainly influenced by the ‘staff experience’ on offer at different firms. This special hub for staff to relax and unwind, with quality catering options, provides a distinct competitive advantage in attracting great talent to ESV.
As you would expect in Sydney many of ESV’s young team are living at home or in share houses and several of them are studying part-time. They are encouraged to use the staff hub facilities if they choose to stay at work to study after hours.
This is their space – there are no locks, we don’t restrict access to anything. Our staff are thoughtful people and respect boundaries.
Maintaining a strong ongoing relationship is as important to ESV as it is to BrewHub. ESV especially appreciates that BrewHub support is always available to respond to glitches and queries as needed.
I was so impressed by the level of professionalism I encountered in all my interactions with BrewHub. It has given us enormous confidence in the quality of their service and their reliability – and that confidence has proved to be well-founded.
ESV are business and accounting advisors. Everything they do stems from their core purpose: to help clients on their journey as they grow.
They strive to see further than what’s in front of them, and they take the time to look past the layers of complexity. As business and accounting advisors, they seek to unveil the bigger picture – whether clients are starting up, scaling up, transforming, participating in a sale, merger or acquisition, or helping them manage the post-sale phase. They focus on looking forward, solving the challenges and making the most of the opportunities as a business grows.