eOffice Case StudyFoster and Partner – 2010 March

eOffice Vision

eOffice‘s vision is to improve the quality of life of professionals by providing flexible and competitively priced ready made networked offices, touch down spaces, meeting and conference facilities in a contemporary and high tech environment in city centre locations across the UK, and worldwide, in the future

eOffice – The Concept eOffice offers beautifully designed, high tech, fully furnished and

serviced offices in city centre locations• eOffice workspace is based on an open plan environment, or “office

neighbourhoods” with few wall to wall partitions, where good aesthetics and design are combined with information-age technology.

Main service lines are virtual offices (business address and telephone answering), hot desking (touch down), fully furnished office, meeting and conference facilities

Additional services include administration and online services, making eOffice a one-stop-shop for start-ups and SMEs

Strong activities for members, including company visits, networking events and powerful online communities (faceboook, linkedin, twitter)

eOffice centres provide a suitable office solution for small businesses, start-ups and self-employed, in particular in the creative, media and technology sectors

All services are sold online, with an ecommerce platform

Office Trends

Decrease in the amount of workspace allocated to individuals

Increase in the creation of spaces to support collaborative work

Growth in the practice of distributed working Growth in the use of technologies to support

collaboration, connectivity and distributed working

Study by DEGW, 2004

Market

Office space (serviced offices)• - Market leader Regus (1000 centres, 135 UK), Servcorp

(Austrialian based, 77 centres) , MWB (UK, 60 centres), The Executive Office (UK, 30 centres)

• - Very fragmented market, around 2,000 centres in UK• - Serviced offices offer little differentiation in terms of design,

technology and servicesConference / meeting rooms

• - Several hotel chains offering conference and meeting rooms• - Conference and meeting centres (Etc. Venues, De Vere)

Virtual office services • - Mail Boxes Etc (part of UPS): shipping, postal and business

services , over 4,800 locations worldwide • - FedEx Office (ex Kinkos): postal services, printing and office

services • - eReceptionist: telephone number and answering services• - DaVinci : virtual office operator

Products / Services

Virtual Office: business address, mail forwarding, telephone answering, messaging

Hot Desking: office access by the hour, with internet connection, prepaid hot desk hours

Meeting , Conference Rooms and Videoconferencing: available on hourly or daily basis

Serviced Offices: flexible office space for individuals and companies from 1 to 20 people

ePA: secretarial services on a prepaid flexible basis Membership and networking: access to community portal and

networking events. Calendar function in myeOffice blog integrated to facebook, linkedin, twitter

Services: voice, data, mail, fax to email, printing, copying, secretarial services, stationery, file storage and digital services

eOffice Soho

eOffice Manchester

eOffice Birmingham

eOffice Bristol

Pricing

Retail concept: £xx.99 Competitive basic prices and adds on (low

cost airline strategy) Different options: basic / premium Incentives for prepayment (12+1 foc) Start low, build volume and slowly increase

prices Keep competitive prices, while building

volume and add more services

PR - Endorsements - Awards

CNN Coverage 2002 (Design 360)

BBC Coverage 2003 (Dreamspaces)

eOffice Soho Finalist FX Awards 2002 and eOffice Manchester Finalist FX Awards 2006

eCiffo, Japan (2002): Selected as innovative offices

IAO (Germany) Office 21 – Future of Work, 2003, selected in their ‘Best Practice Tour’

HSBC Star Award 2004 – Finalist

BCO Innovation Award Overall Winner 2007

BCO Regional Winner 2007 – 2008

RIBA – Good Office Design 2009

Partnerships

Key Suppliers

Herman Miller - Case Study 2003

Kristalia – Case Study 2007

Avaya – Telecom

Canon – Imaging solutions

Key Marketing Partners British Library – IP Centre Make your Mark Microsoft – Biz Spark Nacue (entreprise societies) Seedcamp School for Startups TiE

‘Distribution’ eOffice 2.0

Search Engines: Google / Yahoo / Bing Business Networks: Linkedin / Twitter Social Networks: Facebook, ASmallWorld Directories: Gumtree / Primefind / Craig’s List Surveys: Zoomerang / Survey Monkey Blogs: myeOffice.com / eOffice.tv Directories encyclopedia: Wikipedia Photo Sharing: Picasa / Flickr Video Sharing: YouTube / Vimeo Virtual Life: Second Life: myeOffice.net

Competitive Advantages

Lower property costs. eOffice operates from business centres of around 10,000 s.f. average (1/3 the size of traditional serviced offices), hence a lower property cost

High margin services. More than 50% of eOffice turnover is derived from high margin services like virtual office, meeting and conference rooms and videoconferencing and hotdesking, as compared to traditional full time self contained office space

High Density. Space efficient benches offer higher density in self contained offices, while the balance of the office space is dedicated to open plan workstations, giving higher density and lower fit out cost.

Direct Sales. A high percentage of leads come via search engines (using SEO techniques and pay per click campaigns) cutting the agent intermediaries

Selling Points / Benefits to Clients

City centre locations, next to transport hubs, and leisure and retail, good quality and representative building

Creative environment with contemporary design and ergonomic furniture. Variety of working areas, including large lobby, break-out areas, quite booths, hot desking / open plan.

Advanced technology, including wireless broadband, voice logging-in anywhere, plasma screens and videoconferencing

Members networking. Registration to myeOffice blog, calendar and connection via Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter. Regular networking events called Net Thursday

Flexibility, scalability and competitive pricing. Price below market leader, options including virtual, part time and full time, possibilities of changing options every month and to scale up or down quickly

Outstanding customer service. Friendly, attentive and professional customer service, from administration, sales, front desk to IT support, fundamental to long-term client retention

eOffice Client Base

Virtual Office: start ups and overseas clients, around 500 companies Hot Desking: growing market, mostly consultants, SMEs, but also

corporates Meeting Rooms: small businesses, creative businesses, large

corporates Serviced Offices: mostly start ups, small businesses, consultants, rep.

offices, companies with between 1-20 people Networking, membership: 130,000 opt-in email addresses, 50,000

Linkedin contacts, over 10,000 twitter followers, over 1,000 eOffice card members