“ABCN
believes that 2006 will be a good year for growth within our industry.
How will you grow your company in order to stay ahead of the pack? Will
you focus on adding centers or adding revenues by providing more and
different services, or will you simply stay the course and focus on
internal improvements and efficiencies?”
 ALLIANCE Members discuss their forecast and plans for 2006.
Hayim Grant is the Owner of Corporate Suites, Inc. in New York, New York.
“Corporate Suites is aggressively pursuing expansion opportunities in
New York City and will continue to add new locations as well as grow
its existing centers in 2006.”
Laurent Dhollande is the President of Pacific Business Centers, Inc. in San Mateo, California.
“We, too, believe 2006 will be a good year for growth. Expansion is
always on our minds, but the low-hanging fruit will be to continue grow
the bottom line in existing centers.
"Although we intend to open new centers in 2006, it is clear that
changes in the business environment - higher interest rates, lower
vacancy, and less generous concessions from landlords - provide us with
a challenge. Our desire to expand has not died down, but with the new
economic climate, we are taking a more cautious approach in discussions
with landlords.
"We expect to realize our safest return through migrating to a new
integrated software platform. The integration of CRM, Online
Reservation, Billing, and Accounting will eliminate data-entry
redundancies and simplify our lives. Since the platform is hosted and
web-based, we are removing the complexity of managing in-house IT tools
with the added benefit of providing a convenient way for our managers
to check things out remotely. And believe it or not, they do access the
system from home, at night, and on the weekends, just as I do! All of
this may cut down on our "Survivor" watching time (but then TiVo is
there to save the day!) but it should increase our productivity and
reduce expenses such as software upgrade license fees, IT support, and
- in the end - payroll. Over time this platform should also contribute
to the revenue line via an interesting real-time marketing portal with
online conference room reservation and online payment capabilities, all
automatically tied to our billing system, providing a ‘self-service’
access to conference room bookings and a new marketing channel. Result:
we get new customers, while our staff can focus less on mundane tasks
and more on meaningful customer service.
"Do
I expect this 'Alice in Wonderland' world to really come to fruition?
The short answer is that if we deliver only half of the internal
improvements we expect from the new platform, we'll be in great shape.
So far so good. Better spring off a solid base than grow in a chaotic
way is our approach for 2006.”
J. Michael
Sayers is part of Sayers Partners Pty. Ltd. and also serves as part of
the ABCN Team, representing Australia and New Zealand.
“The
market within Australia has experienced significant growth in recent
years as has been evident by the establishment of a number of new
serviced offices in all capital cities and the suburban growth as well.
The concept of serviced offices is still in its maturity and many
opportunities for operators have arisen. Major operators such as Regus
and Servcorp have consolidated their positions and we at CEO have
opened our tenth site recently in central Melbourne with already good
enquiry levels. In 2006 we have committed to new sites in Melbourne and
Brisbane as well as working with property developers in consultancy and
management agreements.
"We
are confident in the continued stability of the Australian economy and
growth within our business model. We have consolidated our position in
the market place by diversifying our business into the areas of
building management, sales and leasing of unserviced office
accommodation, property ownership, management agreements, as well as
traditional provision of serviced office accommodation. Being a
diversified business model offers us more business opportunities and a
buffer against downturns that inevitably occur in our industry.
'Our
focus apart from continued expansion is the ongoing commitment to
reduce operational costs and the development of more streamlined and
effective information flows such as our commitment to our specialized
software. This together with our commitment to expand further the
Serviced Office Network (SON), an independent organization of serviced
office operators around Australia, will ensure that 2006 will be
another great year for CEO and the industry in Australia.”
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