One of the key features of serviced offices is flexibility, and this benefit has resulted in an extremely wide range of occupiers.
Many of these are people or businesses that would never have considered a formal lease: for example, people who work from home whose space has become limited; or those who are happy working from home but occasionally need to host client or marketing meetings. There may also be the opportunity to benefit from a virtual assistant for times when the one-man-band is unavailable.
Such is the popularity of the serviced office sector, that many of them are offering deals to ward off the competition and attract new customers. Many of these customers will be entrepreneurs and new businesses who are reluctant to commit to long-term leases and who need flexible and easy-to-move-into space. Opportunities from the serviced office providers include rent-free periods or the waiver of a deposit, which prove attractive to burgeoning businesses with narrow margins.
The increasing popularity and convenience of project management in today’s business world means that it also fits well into the serviced office model. More and more people are working on a project manager or consultancy basis, on projects that run for fixed periods, and yet which are sophisticated and require a number of staff. These kind of projects are well served by the flexibility of serviced offices, which can be handed back once the project is finished, or just as easily kept on temporarily.
Another common occupier of the serviced office space is the expanding office: the company that needs smaller branch offices in different areas of the country – or even world – but which may wish to test the market in that area. The serviced office allows the opening, expanding or closure of offices on a flexible basis, giving the developing company the best of all worlds.
This news was brought to you by Morgan Pryce, a specialist tenant acquisition agent with offices in Oxford Circus and the City. Morgan Pryce specialises in search, negotiation and project management and works exclusively for tenants.
