The Ideal Office, Your Office Agent

There are over 1 billion mobile workers in the world today according to statistics from International data Corp and this number is due to rise to 1.3 Billion by 2015. This means that many more people are working from home, more companies are having to change their culture to reflect these new work style choices and the workplace of today looks or feels nothing like it used to. The visible impact of all this workplace change is that the coffee shops are filling up and this is a sign that we all still need some form of human interaction to keep moving forward in this new business world of ours.

Here is the question though. Have we gone from bad to worse? How great is it really to work in a coffee shop with the noise, the music, the people listening to our conversations. Surely there has to be a better way. The good news is that there is a better way, but only for those in the know. Over the last 5 years an industry has been growing at over 40% annually, while the rest of the world has seen falling production and output. This industry is the flexible office and meeting room space market and comprises of a growing number of international, national and local executive suite, coworking and bespoke meeting room venues who are catering to the mobile workforce. Not only are these workspace emporiums providing the exact solutions that companies and individuals need but they are doing it for less than the coffee cost in Starbucks.

So who are these providers of the workplace of the future. The biggest one is Regus business centers who now have over 1,300 locations worldwide and with their business world card you can get access to their business lounges for under $30 a month. This is on average less than the price of one Starbucks coffee per day for a workspace, unlimited coffee and filtered water, free wifi access and the pleasure of being surrounded by other people doing business rather than buying a cappuccino. Premier business centers also offer 16 hours meeting room access a month for their mailbox clients for $50. That’s $3.00 an hour for a boardroom. Coworking Spaces like Blank Spaces or WeWork allow access to desk space for $20 to $30 a day, where you are surrounded by other companies who are all encouraged the network and refer business to each other and if you look hard enough you can use this space for free in many locations. It is impossible to mention every option because there are over 10,000 around the world and all offer office and meeting rooms by the hour, day or month in an environment that works for your business. Your office Agent exist to educate companies for free about smarter ways to work and then guide you to the best one. This is the future of work.

As always we are going to have to rank the coffee shop though based on the same 6 criteria as usual out of a maximum score of 5 points for each criteria: