www.bqdoha.com

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Qatar is not the easiest place in the region to do business. Apart from cost of setting up and procedural issues, finding start-up-friendly rentals is close to impossible.

None of these issues, however, are exclusive to Qatar. With needs come op-tions, and desks-for-rent and co-working spaces are finding more traction in the country. While informal sharing arrangements are aplenty, a few players have gone a step further.

Evgenia Berestneva, director of 7ayak Hub, the latest entrant, says the need has been so great that even without investing in marketing yet, they have received a lot of interest just word of mouth. Surprisingly, we got more response than we expected - many people apparently are already familiar with the concept of co-working, some were looking for such places in Doha, some even had similar ideas to start one.

Weve looked up at different statistics of entrepreneurship growth and de-velopment in Qatar, and research findings among youth in Qatar. There are con-stantly growing numbers of entrepreneurs, freelancers, home-based businesses. All of them essentially need a space to work, but mostly, they all need a space to collaborate a physical space where they can meet each other, share the chal-lenges they face, learn and support each other. We felt that it's the right time to start, because many co-working spaces started to appear in Gulf region, especial-ly in the UAE.

hOT-DeSKING& VIRTUAL SPACeS

QATAR

How to get around high business rentals in QatarBy Ira Pavaki, Doha

DECEMBER 2014

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Servcorp, an international player, provides a far more formal facility. Its Senior Manager, Fabienne Hajar, says most of its clients are SMEs (small and medium enterprises) and international companies who seek local presence. The rentals also tend to be for a longer tenure. Most of the cli-ents rent a serviced office or virtual office for an average of two years before they start expanding their business without investing in space and overheads. It saves money without cutting corners and helps the client focus on their business and generate more revenue.

For 7ayak Hub, the clientele is an interesting mix. We get requests from different kinds of businesses and start-ups at different stages of development. We don't focus on cer-tain fields, welcoming everybody and, depending on their needs, finding resources to support them among our network of organizations and individuals. The same goes for usage of working space; at the moment there are no criteria to get in, even though there are plans to implement it in the future to make sure those start-ups and SMEs who are most in need can access the service, says Berestneva.

At present, they host eight companies, and 30 odd other individuals, which means about 40 people use the facilities on a daily basis. Those 40 also usually hold meetings with externals at our place, so daily footfall is, probably, double. Overall capacity of the building is about 70 working individ-ual spaces, so we are working on renovation to create more working areas, so we can welcome more people.

Berestneva sees their offering as a niche. We are the first co-working space in town and there is no other compa-ny, which provides the same combination of services as we do. Talking only about working space, there are few other office providers as Servcorp, Regus and Globex, who offer services of virtual office, hot desk in shared space and pri-vate small offices. They usually have high standards and high prices as well, so it's becoming inaccessible for freelancers, start-ups and SMEs. And this is where we come in. We have fast internet, free tea and coffee, printer/scan/copy servic-es, so even those who used to work in coffee-shops, would

rather use the hot desk here. Apart from the working space itself, we invest a lot of

time in facilitating learning between our residents, as well as organizing networking and educational events ourselves. So, they barter services, consult each other, brainstorm or get feedback for their new product or campaigns, they co-operate - which rarely happens in usual business centers or coffee-shops.

Even in comparison to government-run incubation cen-tres, Berestneva feels they score better. You can find many of them and many have really good supporting programs and products, from funding to consultancy to business advice to incubation etc. Our advantage is that we are a private company and it makes us more flexible and accessible as op-posed to those funded by the government. We also believe that strength lies in collaboration, not in competition, so we are planning for strategic partnerships with different orga-nizations in the so-called entrepreneurship eco-system to be able to offer better support to start-ups and SMEs in Qatar.

7ayak Hub are also planning to open more spaces and currently looking for the right locations to ensure their costs don't rise super high, so they can still be accessible to all start-ups, freelancers, SMEs.

The market for such facilities is only set to grow in Qatar. Says Hajjar, I believe that there is limited supply for smaller offices ranging from 100 to 250 sq. m particularly in prime Grade A buildings, given the floor plates of a lot of the avail-able buildings are designed for single floor tenants.

The office occupancy rates across Doha are current-ly 75 percent, with newer buildings taking longer to lease, given the oversupplied market. However, despite Dohas office market being currently oversupplied, it is becom-ing more challenging to find space for smaller occupiers. Which gives Servcorp a big advantage.

The rentals of commercial space and residential units are likely to see steady growth over the coming months of course depending on the political and economic situation in the region.

Globex "The Gate" Doha offers 90 fully furnished and equipped offices (in multiple formats) over 2,800 sq. m of space with flexible lease terms from one day to five years. It is located on the: 7th and 8th floors of Tower II of The Gate mallFor more details visit www.salamglobexqatar.com

7ayak Hub is the first co-working space in Qatar, de-signed to support the community of change makers and scale up their work through access to collaborative net-work, educational content and creative space. They offer 70 desks at their location: Al Idreesi Street, 12Madinat Khalifa South, Immigration

Round About, Doha For more details visit www.7ayakhub.me

Regus Business Centre has fully furnished and ready-to-go executive suites, meeting rooms and office space for rent at three locations in Qatar 63 Airport Road, 1st Floor, Umm Ghuwailina Zone 27, Doha D Ring Road, Al Mataar, Al Qadeem District, Doha Al Fardan Office Tower, 8th, 9th and 14th Floors, Al Funduq

61 West Bay, DohaFor more details visit www.regus.qa

Servcorp has serviced and virtual offices as well as casual meeting rooms to rent at three locations in Qatar Levels 14 & 15, Commercial Bank Plaza, West Bay, Doha Level 22, Tornado Tower, West Bay, Doha Level 21, Burj Doha,West Bay, DohaFor more details visit www.servcorp.com.qa

Business Centres in Qatar at a glance