Office of the Future

How Fast Can You Work?

In the Internet economy, there's no such thing as too fast -- even when it comes to opening offices. As Jonathan Dutton, 46, group marketing director at Regus, says, "Our strategy is, We need to be where we need to be immediately." Unfortunately, setting up an office is still pretty time-consuming -- similar to what air travel was like before airlines were around to coordinate all of the details, says Gaudreau. "You had to do everything yourself," he says. "You had to lease a plane, buy fuel, hire a pilot, and hire someone to carry your bags. Then some bright person came along and said, 'I'm going to spend billions of dollars on infrastructure and lease lots of planes, and I'm going to hire and train all of the staff myself. Then I'll link it all together with a reservations system, so that all you'll have to do is pull out a credit card, and I'll get you from point A to point B. That's what we've done for offices."

Regus has done all of the "heavy lifting," so that its customers barely have to lift a finger. There's no need to hire lawyers to handle the paperwork, architects to design the space and complete the renovations, and designers to oversee the decor; no need to shop for a phone system and an Internet provider, and to hire a qualified, bilingual support staff; no need to spend months -- an eternity in Internet time -- just getting started. "Most companies simply aren't prepared for the logistics of opening a new office," Dixon says. "They think that they are just renting space to sell their product, but they soon realize that it's like starting another business."

Companies like Invisix don't have time for that. Conceived in the spring of 1999 as an alliance between Motorola and Cisco, Invisix combines the mobile and Internet technologies of its respective parent companies, offering "data applications in a mobile environment," explains Richard Steele, 51, general manager and director of Invisix. The market for this powerful technology is huge: A single deal could be worth $2 billion to $3 billion, and Invisix is aiming for more than 50% of the market -- as much as $60 billion -- by 2003. That's quite a challenge for a company that's just starting up. The competition is fierce; the window of opportunity, narrow. "We had to be up and running in a hurry," Steele says. "Otherwise, we'd miss the boat."

So Invisix signed a three-year deal with Regus. The Stockley Park center, located west of London, was the perfect site -- an entire floor dedicated to as many as 80 engineers and salespeople. It's located smack in the region's high-tech hotbed, and it's close to Cisco's office in Europe, a new Motorola office, and Heathrow Airport. "We wanted to be accessible to our customers in Europe, in the Middle East, and in Africa," Steele says. "When they come here for a demonstration, they don't want the trouble of getting into and out of the UK."

To Regus, the key to speed is flexibility -- a property portfolio that accelerates growth rather than hinders it. What usually happens is that a company outgrows its space and is stuck, either with a building that it's still paying off or with a long-term lease. So the company leases additional space. After doing that a few times, it's got a real-estate dilemma on its hands. "Instead of having one nice building, you're leasing offices all over the place, and those leases end at different times," says Gaudreau. "Consolidating it all is a nightmare." Eager to avoid that situation, a growing number of property directors for companies have decided to keep about 10% of their portfolio with Regus, which makes the property more flexible, Gaudreau says.

And a lack of flexibility is just the problem at Glaxo Wellcome. Although the pharmaceutical giant owns most of its offices, accommodating short-term project teams presents a challenge. "We are no longer able to fit in teams on demand," says Peter Redhead, 57, who oversees property acquisition. "We've run out of room."

Two years ago, Redhead had to find 20,000 square feet for a project team that would be occupying the space for three years. As if that weren't difficult enough, Redhead had just three weeks to secure the location -- "an impossible task," he recalls. The Regus center in Slough was a no-brainer. "We could have it for the three years and then walk away," says Redhead, who has since put two other project teams in Regus centers.

Given the state of competition today, companies can ill afford to spend their resources on something other than their core business. "The dotcoms don't want to tie up their assets in brick-and-mortar facilities," says Gaudreau. "I tell them to take that million dollars in property off the balance sheet and to hire 10 developers. Those are your real assets -- your people, not your property."

The most successful companies understand that concept. That's why outsourcing has become so popular. Regus proposes outsourcing not only property and equipment but also office management. "Give the clerical and administrative responsibilities to those who get paid to do such tasks," says Gaudreau. "That will free you up to work on your big deals."