Part 2 of our exploration about the financial, flexibility, and travel benefits driving startups and major corporations to work from coworking spaces.
The second portion of our post exploring the benefits of coworking spaces. This information is vital to helping anyone who owns or manages shared workspaces to understand their prospects and members so they can be serve their goals.
Today every organization from non-profit to multi-nationals thinks about being lean and flexible. Whether your prospects are growing fast, shrinking, or just changing the make-up of their team, their real estate portfolio is almost always wrong.
Communal workspaces are generally much more flexible. Organizations can add another suite near their main location, or open a new, fully furnished satellite location in weeks.
Consider this sales pitch: In addition to physical flexibility, coworking spaces and serviced offices are good on their balance sheet. Short-term leases of less than a year commitment generally do not need to be counted as liabilities according to GAAP guidelines. (Of course, we make visitor management software, so we recommend you consult your organization's accountant who can advise you based on the specifics of your bottom line.)
It is unlikely your prospects are space management experts. More likely they dread the period before their lease comes up. It forces them to re-evaluate their current space versus other options, execute a build out, make furniture decisions and reboot their workplace technologies. Surely their time is better suited focused on customers.
Serviced offices are a better way. IBM and WeWork are piloting a partnership where the latter takes over management of IBM-dedicated workspaces. The goal is to allow IBM to focus on their core business while ensuring their employees are always working in a modern office environment.
Whether your prospects are road warriors or just need to knock out a pitch on your family vacation, you can be a part of the solution. Multi-location operators like Industrious allow members to work across their network. Even independent spaces have teamed up to offer a larger geographical footprint. The League of Extraordinary Coworking Spaces and connects spaces across the globe for traveling coworkers.
The benefits of coworking spaces are numerous. Whether they are focused on building their bottom lines, their brains, or their networks, give them a reason to select your shared workspace.
Drafted by Tian Gao
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