The rise of serviced offices is as “dramatic as the industrial revolution”, according to Andrew Philips, director of European investment at WeWork.
The property boss addressed an audience and panellists at EG’s ninth annual Offices Summit on 25 November, where industry heavyweights discussed what made a successful start-up and whether office space played a role.
“I think we are at the very beginning and I am not sure we fully understand what might happen,” Philips said.
WeWork was recently valued at $10bn (£6.6bn) and currently has 366,000 sq ft of office space in London alone, rising to 500,000 sq ft by the end of 2015.
Farrol Goldblatt, director of workplace at TP Bennett, added that start-ups were not the only clients using co-working spaces, with larger corporations investing in non-traditional offices.
Goldblatt, who has worked on designing “experimental” space for large banks and telecoms companies, said: “I certainly echo that we are in a revolution; we are seeing 90% of corporate clients and SMEs redesigning agile offices across many sectors.
“We are seeing a hybrid; the larger organisations are not just working alone, they are tapping into the talent in Clerkenwell and Shoreditch. There is a knotting and welding of different organisations.”
Charlie Green, chief executive of The Office Group, said flexibility was a key driver for businesses, largely due to technology creating a cultural shift in how people work and a desire to do everything faster.
Panellists acknowledged this was particularly prevalent after the recession as small businesses were afraid of financial failure.
But Steve Jude, chief executive of Citibase, revealed that despite many start-ups being destined to fail, during the economic slump Citibase’s revenues increased.
“In the recession we nearly tripled the size of our businesses and increased our occupancy during that time,” he said.
Green added: “People don’t stop just stop working… as long as we take the best buildings and locations and create the right product, those will be the ones people will choose to work from in a tougher time.”
