by Brianna Crandall — July 27, 2018 — Commercial real estate magazine Bisnow recently interviewed Antony Slumbers, keynote speaker for NAIOP/GWA’s FlexOffice 2018 conference September 12-14 in Austin, Texas, about Slumbers’s view of changes coming in office space leasing and management. NAIOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, released an excerpt of the article that appears below, and the rest of the article is available on the Bisnow site.
According to Slumbers, the future of office space will be about more than square footage or open-office floor plans. Rather, office managers will have to focus on creating an attractive user experience, from free coffee to lounge space, for every occupant. In the US, around 1.2 million employees worked in a coworking space last year. With flexible office space now the main driver of office occupancy growth, many landlords have started to convert conventional office space into coworking and flexible space.
It is a change that former property developer, entrepreneur and consultant Antony Slumbers believes will reshape how commercial real estate companies manage and market their office properties. For Slumbers, the age of simply leasing out an office space and keeping the building lights on is over. Owners must now either learn how to leverage data and collaborate with office occupants or partner with a brand providing that service.
Slumbers remarked:
Real estate is no longer a bond-like industry where long-term leases of office space lead to long-term returns on investment. The world has turned from having one customer to whom you send a rent invoice four times a year, to your customer being every single person in the building. They have to be sold on the user experience that you provide for them. It’s an entirely different mindset.
A combination of improving technology and offering shorter lease terms has helped fuel the transformation of office space from a static product to a service-focused industry. While office occupants of the past relied on stationary equipment such as desktop computers, file cabinets and landline phones to complete tasks, mobile phones and laptops have given employees an opportunity to choose where and how they work. Portable technology has also transformed offices from cubicle farms to community gathering spaces, where employees focus on more collaborative work that requires social activity and innovative thinking.
Read the rest of this article, “The Rise Of ‘Office As A Service’ Might Be Here Sooner Than You Think,” on Bisnow. Online registration is available now for the FlexOffice 2018 conference in September exploring cutting-edge office trends and tech.
