by Clinton Selby | Blog
It’s fascinating to see how our coworking spaces have evolved.
Although coworking is still a relatively recent phenomenon, it’s been around long enough for us to observe trends and changes. We’re not the only keen observers. COVID-19 shifted workers from their usual office to their home office. For many, that shift is an ongoing one, and remote working is a way of life.
Working from home is a way of life that doesn’t sit too comfortably with many of them. While the change of scenery and novelty factor might have been energising to start with, the lack of social contact from working with other people has left them feeling down. That’s why they’re checking us out and calling us.
Most ask us two key questions:
Do you have real people coworking there? (Why yes, yes we do.)
What’s a coworking space like in 2020? (How long have you got?)
To answer that second question, we usually point to the trends that are shaping the global coworking model in 2020. They give our potential clients a vivid picture of what life is like in coworking spaces right now, or what might happen in the near future. Here are the big four that we’ve noticed.
Smaller Spaces Are Thriving
Worldwide, there is a trend towards “coworking conglomerates”: large companies that run coworking spaces like branches. These spaces are generic, and one is virtually identical to the other. At the other end of the scale, there are some smaller players who won’t reach the same scale, and who don’t aspire to anyway. They do offer something different though, and that is variety. For example, they might provide a career-specific type of space, or work closely with local businesses in their neighbourhood, or bring more of a sense of community and inclusion to the coworking space (like us!).
Whatever the niche, coworking spaces that do something a little different are thriving.
A Space For Startups
Coworking spaces and startups are naturally suited. The space we provide is affordable and used on an “on-demand” basis. These things make it perfect for new companies that need to keep their overheads low while giving them access to the professional services they need, e.g. fast wi-fi, meeting rooms, and event spaces.
This is why an increasing number of startups are moving into coworking spaces as they begin their operations, and why coworking spaces are actively reaching out to startups at the same time.
More Add-on Services
Coming soon to coworking spaces near you: a more diverse range of services. While offering space-as-a-service is the foundation of any coworking enterprise, there is a trend towards adding other revenue streams and services,
including business coaching, on-site restaurants and cafes, and IT services.
The Sense Of Community Is Growing
One of the biggest trends is community outreach, where coworking spaces look to associate with the local business community. In some cases, this is done to get local businesses to purchase memberships for employees, or to attract freelancers and remote workers away from cafes and other spaces.
Our approach towards community is slightly different.
As far as we’re concerned, a community is something we’re creating from within.
It’s important to us.
We celebrate the diversity of our members, and as more remote workers join us, and from all sorts of backgrounds, our community becomes an even more interesting and inclusive one.
No matter what new trends shape our coworking spaces in the future, our sense of community will never change.
by Clinton Selby | Blog
Data from Office Hub, an online marketplace for flexible office space that operates across Australia and several Asian countries, showed a 105 per cent increase in the number of businesses with 15 or more employees looking for coworking space in 2017-2018. 
We are lead to believe that coworking is an open plan, airy space, working with other people. But then there are the major coworking operators such as WeWork and Christies which are basically serviced offices.
According to Colliers International property experts, most new coworking spaces comprised of private office suites.
Larger companies are now driving the demand to have their staff in coworking spaces as this offers these businesses a way to increase or decrease their office footprint in response to the everchanging conditions in the market.
Many of the new co-working spaces now contain discrete lockable offices with their own IT n
etworks, phone systems and conference rooms. It seems that coworking spaces are now starting to compete with the serviced office space providers such as Dexus and Regus. Both the coworking and serviced office space sectors have evolved a lot, being more like the other. Additionally, landlords are increasingly looking at coworking as a way to attract tenants. Landlords are realising client want the flexibility to expand and retract as project-based teams are needed. New industries are also adopting elements of the coworking ethos – to bring disruption to outdated models.
Popup-coworking
Popup-coworking reclaims the unused spaces that are closed during the day and turn them into pop-up coworking offices.
Due to its nature, Popup-coworking is cheaper than standard coworking and pay-as-you-go. Perfect for entrepreneurs on a budget, early-stage startups, freelancers, remote workers and the new breed of digital nomads.
Popices, which launched on 1st February 2017. is currently only available in Amsterdam but its plans to pop-up in other cities across Europe soon. Its first spaces include Metobolic Lab – an office boat nestled amongst the creative community of De Ceuvel.
Hotel Coworking
Hobo hotel in Stockholm markets itself as not just a hotel, but as a new design hotel that welcomes professionals as well as visitors. Its name is even based on the travelling lifestyle of 1930’s America, with ‘hobo’ meaning a thoughtfully aware and curious person, who sees themselves as a world citizen.
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Proudly displayed on the hotel website, Hobo is presented as ‘a meeting point, a workplace, an office or just a nice place to visit and hang out.’ It then says ‘and obviously you can stay here too. Check out our 201 amazing hotel rooms, all loaded up with handy gadgets you can borrow during your stay.’ The hotel also boasts a pop-up exhibition area (called SPACEby) for startups to showcase their products.
References
by Clinton Selby | Blog
In March 2019, Essensys hosted the webinar Coworking in Numbers: The Impact of Market Data. These are some of the key take-aways.
The Panel welcomed Liz Elam from GCUC, Steve King from Emergent Research, and James Rankin and John Williams from Instant Offices.
The discussion was started off with a discussion around industry nomenclature, specifically the definition of coworking vs the definition of flexible workspaces.
For Elam, it’s simple: coworking is focused on a belief in the community to make the world a better place. “It’s not so much about selling offices, but about taking care of the people within your space.”
Rankin and Instant Offices prefer the term Flexible Workspace. “Coworking has become a marketing term to describe the feel of the space rather than a strict definition” of the space itself. He noted the data and trend analysis from Google: “people are searching for coworking but don’t necessarily want an open working area.” Rather, they are searching for private offices within a wider community building.
King, for his part, has reached the conclusion that flexible workspace is an appropriate term for the industry, arguing that “coworking is now a kind of subset of flexible space.”
Definitions are important as they play a key role in research. While Emergent Research’s numbers show that there are around 22,000 coworking spaces worldwide, Instant Offices has tracked around 24,000 globally and believes there are approximately 9,000 they haven’t accounted for. King believes the difference in numbers (although quite similar) can be accounted for by Emergent Research’s narrower coworking definition.
Growth, increased competition, and higher inventory of larger spaces are driving a need for the operators to understand better how to use space-as-a-service and more importantly, how to monetize it.
Rankin shared that Instant Offices is seeing high growth in hybrid spaces, those that offer a mix of private and shared workspace environments within a building or floor. “We are seeing less and less pure business centres or executive suites, and fewer pure coworking spaces.”
Elam’s theory is that increased demand for private space is driven, in part, by a thriving economy. While this may hold true, Rankin believes demand for private workspace is increasing because people need a space where they can focus and get down to work.
When it comes to space, the majority of corporates prefer to have an exclusive, dedicated area personalized with their own branding, look and feel. While there isn’t a defined percentage of corporates on the market, Rankin stated that 50% of office requirements are for teams of 25 or higher, seeking some form of private space 50% of office requirements are for teams of 25 or higher, seeking some form of private space. King referenced a survey conducted last year that found one-third of coworking members were from organizations with more than 100 employees, which was up dramatically compared to 5 years ago.
There are 4 Trends Driving and Shaping the Industry namely Niche operators, Corporate demand, Real estate stakeholders and Emerging markets
1. Niche and small operators
According to Instant Offices, the top 10 operators in the US make up only 14% of the total market. The rest of the market is made up of small and independent operators. Both areas are experiencing growth, large operators are scaling up aggressively but since the industry has a low barrier to entry, independent operators are also able to thrive.
King noted that “small and niche spaces are holding their own, and they are growing just as fast as large players in terms of the number of spaces and members.”
An interesting development, however, was noted by Elam. “Operators are opening larger locations off the bat.” The industry is welcoming bigger spaces. One of the main reasons behind this is that operators are seeking to cater to corporate occupiers.
2. Catering to corporate occupiers
Instant Offices’ research has found that the average requirement size is for 5 to 6 people, a number that has been increasing steadily over the past several months. “The market is starting to ramp up as bigger teams come in.”
Corporate occupiers have become a driving force of the industry. However, they’re searching for a different space-as-a-service experience; they have different needs.
Elam stated that one priority for corporate clients is to be able to maintain their culture: “They don’t want to be in somebody else’s culture and they are searching for spaces that are designed specifically for them. Operators need to be able to deliver on this, as well as meet their technology and security standards.”
Rankin agreed, “corporate occupiers want a space with their own look and feel. They want to be able to bring in their brand to the space.”
According to Instant Offices’ numbers, corporate and large requirements (for teams of 25+) account for about 50% of flexible workspace demand.
3. Real estate stakeholders
Real estate stakeholders and landlords are increasingly interested in the flexible workspace industry.
Although landlords are interested in the industry, Rankin argues that “it’s very much in the early stages for them.” Mainly, they are trying to understand what’s happening and how they can fit into it. Although some landlords have directly entered the market with their own flexible workspace brand, the majority of them are looking at the industry from a joint-venture perspective.
“It’s not easy to run a flexible workspace and it’s not a landlord’s core business,” he added.
King shared that Emergent Research is comparing this to the hotel industry model. From his perspective, there will be a lot of joint ventures and new partnerships between existing operators and landlords. Elam, for her part, strongly believes that “a significant portion of the market will move towards management agreements and joint ventures.”
Rankin added that although landlords are looking to partner, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they will stick with an existing operator’s brand. Some might look to create a new brand, run by an existing operator, but that’s unique to the landlord’s properties.
4. Emerging markets
Instant Offices believes that the industry will experience growth in secondary and tertiary cities, claiming that the “industry is expanding really quickly in these markets.”
King added that the same applies to suburban areas and small towns, while Elam added that rural coworking is also gaining traction.
Wellness, Investment, and an Economic Downturn
Elam predicted that the industry will continue to receive investment. She also stated that the biggest trend is wellness (physical, mental, and environmental wellness), saying that it’s more than a trend, “it’s a focus.”
One shadow that’s hanging over the industry is what will happen when the market enters a downturn. While many have argued that the industry will suffer, the panellists believe the contrary.
Elam is not worried about an economic downturn. She believes that open and shared workspaces will thrive the most in the event of a downturn, as these spaces are less expensive. King argues that when a downturn hits, the industry will be initially affected; however, from mid to late recession, the industry will thrive as people shift to flexible workspaces to reduce fixed costs.
Rankin and Williams argued that the industry will experience strong growth even during a recession. Flexibility is key during such times; flexibility is what has driven the industry and it’s what will continue to drive it during a downturn.
The overarching conclusion of the webinar was the importance of knowing your market and understanding what your customers want. “The industry is in a great spot and market data is instrumental in helping people to understand the market and gain visibility across the industry,” said Rankin. Our market relies heavily on the research conducted by organizations such as Instant Offices and Emergent Research. Understanding growth trends, economic drivers, and occupier demands are vital for operators to extend a better, more service-centric coworking solution to their customers and a run a successful, scalable, flexible workspace operation.
References
by Clinton Selby | Blog
WeWork has made a surprising move in February by buying Euclid a service that tracks smartphones in retail spaces. This comes after purchasing Teem’, a Salt Lake City based office management startup pushing to also become a software-as-a-service provider.
WeWork Testing Sensor Technology.
WeWork is also testing several types of sensors including motion and thermal detectors, as well as Bluetooth Check-Ins. The aim is to analyse what the intent of use vs the actual use of the workspace consists of. Shiva Rajarama (WeWork’s Chief Product Officer) calls it “Google analytics for space”.
Workplace Insights
Rajarama also says that the platforms and its teams will become integrated into what WeWork is calling “Workplace Insights” a software analytics package that WeWork plans to sell to companies that’s aren’t renting we WeWork but wants to Wework-ify their own offices. Using Teem Technology, Customers can know when a conference room is being booked and with Euclid’s technology, we can also let the customer know how many people showed up to the meeting. these technologies will make it possible to test run spaces with data to back it up.
What about Privacy?
The acquisition of Euclid may lead to many constructive changes, it is receiving heavy criticism from different sectors about people being concerned about their privacy.
When asked if individuals can be identified through the technology that WeWork is buying in Euclid, Rajaraman does not say no, stressing instead that the focus is on clustered information. “We’re committed to respecting the privacy of our members and these employees,”.
There is always a possibility that the software will identify specific individuals rather than the whole bunch. The question is whether this step will prove good for this big coworking firm or will they suffer losses? Only time can deduce the answer to this query.
Rajaraman also added “We’re looking at the aggregate level to understand how space is being used. We’re less interested in the individual. If I throw a large party, I’m interested in knowing why 40 people showed up versus 100; it’s not as interesting to see who individually showed up.”
References
