BY DAVID KINNAIRD, PRESIDENT, N. AMERICA, ESSENSYS

Part 2 of How to Drive Revenue and Delight Members by Outsourcing Your Workspace Technology

Technology can be complicated, and even more so when it involves multi-tenanted infrastructure delivery and support. Operators have historically approached workspace IT – network configuration, VLANs, Wi-Fi, wired connectivity, and telephony – in a variety of ways: from third-parties to multiple vendors and hiring dedicated IT staff to manage their infrastructure. Most experienced operators' approach consists of multiple, disparate systems that don’t speak to each other and require comprehensive contract management and multiple (and expensive!) invoices from a wide variety of vendors.

David Kinnaird, President, essensys N. America, has joined the Board of the Global Workspace Association (GWA). This time last year it was announced David would lead essensys' United States operation. With a successful 2016 and now, his appointment to the GWA board, David has been well received among our friends and peers in the US Shared Workspace industry. 

We sat down with David to find out about his new role with the GWA. Here's what he had to say... 

BY BEN CROUCH, CHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER, ESSENSYS

Part 1 of How to Drive Revenue and Delight Members by Outsourcing Your Workspace Technology

The growth of shared workspaces has accelerated rapidly over the last decade. This period of rapid growth meant that service, technology and software providers to the workspace industry struggled to keep up with the requirements of both experienced multi-site operators and new single site startups. This in turn, resulted in operators who are confronted with manual processes and generic software which damages both their operational efficiency and overall customer experience.

essensys has been featured in the 2016 Coworking Management Tools Guide published by Coworking Insights. Released this week, the guide provides busy operators and community managers with a detailed view of Coworking space management tools. The essensys platform demonstrates a clear distinction among its peers for its comprehensive features and clear roadmap for the most advanced capabilities that will help operators to manage their space more efficiently while adapting to the ever-evolving shared workspace industry.  

After a successful week at GWA 2016 in Las Vegas, it’s time to reflect. Not about the amount of money lost at the tables but about what it takes to be a successful workspace operator. This year there was a lot of discussion around how to monetize services and provide upsell and cross-sell opportunities in both coworking spaces, business centers, and executive suites.

With the event held at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Resort in Vegas, it occurred to me that there is a huge amount that flexible workspace operators could learn from Sin City. So, here are my thoughts on the top five things that workspace operators can learn from Las Vegas:

Flexible workspace industry veteran, workspace management software expert and essensys President of North America shares the facts, figures and recommendations for flexible workspace operators:

Always-on connectivity has given people and devices the ability to connect to the cloud from wherever they are and regardless of what they’re doing. The network is now the computer, pushing much of the hard-core processing into the cloud, which means that our devices have become smaller, more convenient and even wearable. But we all know that mobile connectivity has limitations and frustrations, so how can we make sure to provide the best possible network access in a flexible workspace?