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Corporates are using Regus’ enterprise plan to tap into the flexspace revolution

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Large businesses are choosing the Enterprise Plan so their teams can move freely around Regus’ global flexspace network on an “on-demand” basis – paid via a single monthly bill

 

A few years ago, British Airways (BA) wanted to radically rethink their international workspace portfolio. “They had just taken out all the customer-service employees from 46 of their global sales offices and consolidated them into two hub locations,” says Isobel McKenna, Vice President of Enterprise Sales UK for Regus’ parent company, IWG. “This left 46 traditional-lease locations with far more space than was required.”

Over time, BA transitioned from traditional leased offices to a more intuitive set-up, centred around flexible workspace (flexspace) and Regus’ Enterprise Plan – a strategy that ended up saving the airline millions of pounds. “On lease expiration, we moved those fixed-office workers to small serviced offices, right-sizing the space so British Airways was only paying for the space that was used,” says McKenna. “And we enrolled all of the company’s mobile salespeople into the Enterprise Plan, so they can drop in and use facilities in any of our locations across our global network.”

She adds: “It’s a mini ‘hub and spoke’ model. You have your dedicated office space for British Airways desk-based staff, with their salespeople having full flexibility to use services across our network. This enabled BA to save in the region of £10m, through right-sizing the portfolio and paying purely for the space and services utilised.”

Increasingly large regional and global organisations like BA are recognising the benefits of flexible working, and discovering the possibilities of converting to a workspace strategy based on efficiency, agility and customisation. The Enterprise Plan for businesses with largely mobile teams who need professional, quality workspace on an “on-demand” basis – rather than being chained to a fixed desk in the same location for five days a week. “Enterprise is really targeting organisations that, for example, have pockets of mobile workers – where they’re effectively on the road, and need a professional environment to work whilst travelling or between appointments,” says McKenna. “It’s also a great solution for client-driven organisations that need to be in close proximity to their customers.”

The Enterprise Plan allows businesses and their teams access private offices, meeting rooms, coworking space and business lounges anywhere in the world – by the hour or the day. Customers can access Regus flexspace products, but they also have access to those in holding company IWG’s portfolio, namely SPACES, Signature by Regus, No18 and HQ as part of the deal. “Enterprise is a unique solution. Some other multi-site competitors claim to have a similar solution but, without our extraordinary network, the value of their solutions is nominal,” says McKenna.

The Enterprise Plan also drives efficiencies by consolidating the spend and activity of all employees enrolled in it. “We can see on a monthly basis what IWG facilities each employee has used, how long they’ve been at those facilities, and what additional services they’ve taken while they’ve been there – whether they’ve ordered catering, used our admin solutions and so on,” says McKenna. “By providing such granular reporting, if you see that a number of individuals are using the same site on a regular basis, it prompts the question of whether it would be more cost-effective to get a small office at this location. The reporting is great, but it’s the intelligence that can be gathered from those reports that will influence future strategy.”

World-leading cloud-data provider NetApp is another company with a global Enterprise Plan contract. “We use it in countries where we don’t have our own offices in order to provide our teams with access to professional workspaces, and for certain executives and salespeople who need touchdown space when travelling,” says Steven van der Poel, the company’s Senior Operations Manager for EMEA and APAC Workplace Resources. “We really like the flexibility it gives our team: they can access professional workspaces on demand wherever they need to be, near to customers, or near to home. We also like that our teams can access all of IWG’s brands, including both Regus and Spaces.”

A key purchase driver for NetApp was the power to consolidate its entire team’s spend into one account, so employees don’t have to worry about paying and expensing themselves. “It’s also really easy to add and change team members using the portal, and the monthly reporting is great as it gives us visibility of where our teams are booking workspaces and how much they are spending,” says van der Poel. “Overall, the proposition works well and the support from the Enterprise team made the whole process straightforward.”

 

Please contact enterprise.sales@iwgplc.com to see if the new Enterprise Plan could be a good fit for your real-estate portfolio