Posts Tagged ‘operators’

While there are several really good websites in the Executive Suites industry, most are completely terrible. Two of the Favorites of Future Offices are unlikely candidates: eSuite.com and Offices.org. Neither of these sites is particularly well-designed, easy to use or have any significant aesthetic value.

The reason they are one of our favorites is their perseverance in the marketplace. Each has been around since the early days of the internet. Esuites became an official domain in September 1995 and Offices.org sprang up a month earlier.

Esuite is run by Pat Garner, an avid business center supporter who was writing about the importance of the internet to our industry way back in 1999.

Offices.org is run by Tina Bartel and is incredible mainly for the site design. Please check it out… it is so old school in its design — well, it’s just beautiful. I know that goes against my previous aesthetic value statement, but I contradict myself quite a bit. So it’s par for the course.

Here’s to Tina and Pat. Keep it up!

Are you looking for an industry where sparks are flying? Where companies are consolidating at breakneck speed? Where the a new leading edge is honed every day? Well, don’t look at the executive suites industry. Yes, there are lots of great things happening. Yes, companies are forming alliances, others are merging. But it’s still a very young industry, just a few decades old. It’s also an industry that is very fragmented with almost as many companies as locations, which leads to an industry that is light on capital.

But all that is changing. As we mentioned in yesterday’s post, key workplace think tanks such as CoreNet are addressing and discussing alternative workplace strategies. Landlords and brokers are finding the industry to be more enticing during this downturn, and are slowly dipping their toes in the water. And of course, companies and individuals are looking for different ways to work, and at a lower cost.

And despite this change, true consolidation is a long way off. Once the industry matures — say in 20 years — we will see some significant consolidation. Until then, it’s still the Wild West. So our advice is to get on the horse, hold on tight and don’t let go!

A recurring theme in the serviced office space world is that it is going to take strategic initiatives on the part of corporate CEOs to ignite serious growth in creation and utilization of serviced offices. We’re not talking about moving from a fraction of a percent of the overall commercial office space market to 1.5%; we’re talking about the type of movement you see Regus’ Mark Dixon and others discussing. We’re talking about the move to 5, 10, 15% of the overall commercial office space market.

In a study published by CoreNet Global in April of 2009, a survey conducted among corporate executives it found the single biggest obstacle to corporations implementing alternative workplace strategies (which could include executive suites as a component) is executive buy-in:

With current workforces becoming further geographically spread along
with the introduction of new technologies, alternative workplace strategies (AWS) present
opportunity that can potentially save on salary cuts and freezes. Still, the largest challenge
continues to be a lack of support from senior management, according to a recent survey of CoreNet
Global Dallas Summit registrants.

While there are pockets of the serviced office industry that are working diligently on gaining access to C-level initiatives, unless there is constant pressure from the industry, demonstrated cohesion and an innovative and solid value proposition, the industry will continue to wish, hope and pray without seeing much benefit.

Regus is doing a great job on this front, but despite their diligence Regus alone is not enough. True innovation is more likely to happen with some direct competition. We’re all still sitting… waiting anxiously for that competition. Where will it come from?

Virtual offices have taken the executive suites industry by storm. Everyone wants to expand the virtual office clientele. If you look out on the internet about the number of individuals talking about virtual offices you will see a sustained flurry of activity, especially on Twitter. Everyday a new company launches promising a great virtual office. But what the heck does it really mean? Virtual office… who has any clue? Everyone has a different conception of a virtual office. What’s yours?

Here’s the quick rundown:

• Group collaboration software that can be simply chat, or a combination of chat, collaboration, centralized repository of communications
• Home or mobile (i.e., your car) office set up that allows independents or corporate workers to connect virtually to colleagues and partners
• Executive suites offering, where client has access to offices, meeting rooms, virtual receptionists, use of a business address, mail receiving, etc.
• Virtual administrative assistants, virtual assitants and virtual personal assitants, and more
• Phone system that allows all types of services. Examples are Ring Central and Phone.com

Within each of these options there are many different many different flavors, many different sizes and many different brands. This will continue to cause confusion in communication and on the internet. Lucky for our industry, the virtual office that is quite prominent on the web (search Google for “virtual office”) is the the executive suites industry. The executive suites industry claims 6 of the top 10 results.

But why do I say this is annoying? Well, I ran into another group collaboration website today that promises:

You save time, stay more competitive, build meaningful business relationships and reduce costs with everything you need in a single location.

While this company might provide a great solution, how many more flavors of these group collaboration and networking sites do we need? Can we really promise these things with simple web collaboration?

Regus has been forming alliances at a blistering pace lately. One thing about those partnerships that is noteworthy is their focus on their virtual services, and the promotions to use services for free. The latest I’ve seen is their alliance with AT&T’s small business group. AT&T’s small businesses can utilize Regus’ Gold Businessworld membership for 6 months for free, 2 months of free virtual officing, or one month of free office space.

The latter of these promotions is a standard industry offering, or almost always negotiable if signing a contract. But giving away the membership or the virtual office is somewhat novel. Generally, the industry isn’t interested in giving away their high margin, low cost virtual services, but it looks like Regus is changing that to get small business attention — a sort of loss leader. In addition, they are giving away a Businessworld membership (the gold plan) which costs $300 per year.

It’s clear that Regus strategy is to penetrate the small business market like no other office services provider can. This is a brilliant strategy and one that competitors will find difficult to combat.