Henry Atsma, Vice President, Working Environment Knowledge for TANGERINE Inc., stated, "MecklerWeb is a great opportunity for us to expand and share our knowledge base. A key focus of TANGERINE is to address the needs of knowledge workers, and the hypertext capabilities of MecklerWeb will enable us to interact with our customers, colleagues, and partners in a very substantive way to address those needs. For example: given a particular correspondent's needs, the hypertext utilities on MecklerWeb would allow us to customize various 'links' that the correspondent can follow to tie together the shared text and concepts we'll install onto MecklerWeb about knowledge work. This will augment our current use of the Internet in developing, explaining, and disseminating new approaches to knowledge work. Our benefit will be the dissemination of a shareable foundation that underlies our own approach to meeting our customer's needs, and the customers' benefit will be an access to shared knowledge which can help them attain sustainable competitive advantage. We are very excited about this new alliance and look forward to the opportunity it will provide for all of us."
Steelcase Inc., the leading manufacturer of office furnishings, has recently announced the formation of TANGERINE as the first company designed to provide working environment strategy and implementation services. TANGERINE is a consulting and service management subsidiary which helps companies define their work place needs, from headquarters to hotel rooms, and manages all aspects of servicing those needs from physical facilities and real estate to travel, temporary help and food services.
"We're committed to helping people work more effectively -- no matter when, where or how work occurs," Jerry K. Myers, Steelcase Inc. president and chief executive officer had noted in making the announcement.
"Supporting an employee's work needs is a major business issue for companies and organizations of all sizes," Myers noted. "The complexity of today's working environments requires greater sophistication and logistics management than has ever been needed before. TANGERINE makes it simple, easy, consistent and affordable. We believe this is a critical need today in providing our clients with a competitive edge."
Fiona Hughes, instrumental in developing the concept for the company, was named president of TANGERINE. She has more than a dozen years of consulting and business management experience in the commercial interiors industry internationally, and has been with Steelcase since 1988.
Hughes noted the new firm is a natural extension of Steelcase's core strengths and meets the needs of many clients looking for support from external sources.
"Steelcase has a wealth of knowledge and expertise in the key working environment issues today," Hughes noted, "particularly in the area of knowledge worker needs. Knowledge workers are the fastest growing segment in the work force today. They work virtually everywhere and anywhere. As a result, their needs are increasingly varied."
"Many clients are looking to significantly increase the effectiveness of their organizations and address their knowledge worker needs. TANGERINE can help provide that. With TANGERINE, we've added a strong service component to address the real estate, facility, work place and people issues to Steelcase's expertise in working environments"
TANGERINE is headquarted in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Henry Atsma
TANGERINE Inc.
Phone: (616) 246-4182
Fax: (616) 246-4925
Internet: dda=id=stc021.hatsma%steelcase-inc@mcimail.com