Scott Chambers, COO of Pacific Workplaces and President-elect of the Global Workspace Association, recently shared his vision for embracing new elements of our industry, and gave us his view on the amazing reshaping and vitality of our industry at the Workspace Association New York (WANY) Annual Conference on June 13, 2014.
Scott inscribed the Workspace-as-a-Service industry squarely as a central part of the Sharing Economy, not unlike companies such as Uber, AirBnB, Chegg, or Dropbox. What these companies have in common with providers of Office Business Centers, coworking places, incubator space, and other forms of on-demand workplaces, is a similar value proposition of making an expensive, managed infrastructure available on a pay-per-need basis, sharing idle resources, and eliminating waste; with community-building as a critical enabler of the “sharing” process.
Scott articulated a compelling case to also place our industry as the core foundation for workplace mobility, along with the explosion of mobile tools, which Keith Warner, another speaker at the conference brilliantly developed with his “Bring-Your-Own-Workplace” discussion in the same meeting.
Data extrapolated from multiple sources, including the GWA 2013 Industry Survey, Regus’ Annual Report, CloudVO, and Emergent Research, shows that our industry is headed down an exceptional course in welcoming this Sharing Economy. Scott revealed that the Shared Office Space segment of our industry worldwide in 2013 was over 14,000 locations strong, generated $10.9 billion in revenue, paid nearly $5 billion in rent, employed over 40,000 people, and hosted approximately 35 million meeting hours!
Scott’s next stop for a more in-depth discussion on the subject, with more exciting news is the Global Workspace Association’s 28th Annual Education Conference in Boca Raton, Florida, September 10-13, 2014. For more information, consult our Workspace Provider Resource Center for more data-driven articles.
