This is the short & sweet summary of the tech panel at the Global Workspace Association’s FlexForward conference in Texas last week.
For a longer, more in-depth (but still sweet) summary, check my personal blog here.
The panel.
Who took part, what part of the Ops Stack they’re involved with and where they are involved with product.
Key Takeaways.
Whilst there were so many insights and actionable tips shared during the panel, here’s just a few that we felt are worth noting again.
- Not a single attendee is completely happy with every single piece of tech they have to work with.
- When looking back to what has changed most since 2017 - integrations, cloud-based systems and convergence of systems were common themes.
- There's still a growing divide between modular-and-monolithic stacks, but everyone is leaning towards integrations to improve efficiencies.
- By automating compliance, and then automating mail operations, 40% of Piloto151's revenue stack comes from virtual offices.
- Delays from multiple operators manually processing requests & returning availability is slowing down flex space adoption (and revenues) from multinational corporations.
- As data becomes more structured and easily shared between systems, then efficiencies can be delivered where human capital isn't necessary (like replying to emails or looking up inventory/pricing).
- There's a huge potential to use external and macro data (like average lease expirations) to plan for and capture market opportunities.
- Internal data, down to the granularity of user or WiFi utilization, can help deliver powerful insights to members, stakeholders, and corporate clients.
- An exciting piece of data that's still missing in the industry is a standardized classification & categorization of buildings and resources.
- Data will become a true superpower as more and more spaces shift from making reactive decisions (to data from the past) to being proactive by leveraging AI and machine learning to predict future changes or shifts.
- In the future, we could see easier deployment of personalized experiences within workspaces through data, integrations and smart hardware.
- Increasingly operators are shifting towards fully-automated and connected experiences. An example is enabling new customers to walk up to self-serve kiosks, book, swipe their card and get instant wifi and door access to leverage the space.
- After a race to build more and more features, we could see tech platforms start focussing on simplicity over functionality.
- In the end, all workspace tech is built to help reduce workloads for the humans who run these businesses. So expect to see more focus on making the tech more powerful through easier integrations and automations.
Notable Quotes.
The whole panel was superb, and we wish we could just share it in its entirety, to be honest.
But here are a few snippets we thought were quote-worthy.
I'm very much looking forward to the next frontier where all of us tech leaders are working together to improve the lives of community managers."
"I think it's time for us to actually cut, and simplify, because technology, in order to be best utilized, needs to be really, really simple and straightforward. and right now, I should be fully honest, it is not."
"You know, take tech, do all of those things, make it personalized, make it frictionless, but then use your energy and your resources to do what's meaningful for people, connection, community, and create those inspiring spaces that you do today."
"By bringing all these systems together you can get that granularity (of data) to make informed business decisions"
"In an ideal world, we all have a dashboard. Where all of our data is coming together from different sources, from our different tech stacks, and we are actually able to use that data in a holistic way, and capture it in such a way that we are able to make those informed decisions. But that's just the very surface of the use and the power of data."
"One of the things that I'm really hopeful for is the ability to unlock this inventory information, make it available so we can drive demand to our co-working partners so that we can help, you know, build a sustainable business for you."
Want to dig into the power of data + integrations?
At Syncaroo we help flex workspace operators and landlords turn their data into a continuous competitive advantage by connecting their software, teams, and systems.
If you’re interested in making your workspace(s) or building(s) better integrated and more data-driven, let’s arrange a time to chat.
