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Year: 2018

Virtual offices give your business a new home for the new year

Posted on by aleks

We all see articles with headlines like “new year, new you” urging you to give yourself a fashion makeover or get in shape as the new year gets underway – but virtual offices can achieve the same for your business with a minimum of effort and expense.

When you open a new virtual office, you get the benefits of a postal address in a prime location, without the inconvenience of having to physically move there.

That means you can continue to work from home, or wherever you currently go to get your work done.

Virtual offices give you the best of both worlds – contact details you can put on all of your business communications to put across the right professional image, but also the flexibility to choose where you actually want to be on a daily basis.

Virtual offices with physical meeting rooms

One problem with some virtual office services is that there is no physical space available if you ever need to meet a client at ‘your’ address in person.

With the Serviced Office Company however, we have physical meeting rooms available on-site that you can book as and when you need some space.

That means that although your virtual office address does not come with physical office space as standard, there are rooms that you can book if you do ever want to be able to welcome clients, investors or anyone else at the address on your letterhead or business card.

In this way, having a virtual office does not leave you without a way to meet people at your chosen location, as you can have a physical presence there at any time just by booking a room.

A new lease of life for your business

All of this means that you can have a virtual office in a desirable location, with the option of hiring some physical space there if and when you need to.

With the Serviced Office Company, that allows you to have a business address in Manchester, Salford Quays or a stone’s throw from Canary Wharf in London.

Your address will be a virtual office in the sense that you do not normally have physical rooms on the premises, but it is real in terms of being able to receive mail to your postal address, and so on.

And the availability of on-site meeting rooms makes it even more real when it comes to meeting important business contacts face to face.

So if you feel as though your business is being held back by trading from a residential address, a less desirable location, or just from somewhere that doesn’t look professional from the outside, a virtual office could be the answer to your needs to get the new year off to a more profitable start.

To find out more about our virtual offices, serviced office space and meeting rooms, email info@servicedofficecompany.co.uk or call us today on 0800 319 6600 to speak to a member of our team at any of our locations in London and Manchester.

How serviced offices help cities to help towns

Posted on by aleks

Our serviced offices in Manchester and London are a great way to get some professional work space in two of the most prosperous cities in the country – but how does this help people in nearby towns?

You may have read our article in November about how offices in Salford Quays have provided an employment boost for people in the surrounding areas.

Now research from the Centre for Cities has shown how prosperous cities nationwide help to raise employment rates and other amenities for local residents.

In its Talk of the Town report, the Centre for Cities points out that less than 10% of Britain’s land area is occupied by cities, but 60% of jobs and 55% of businesses are found within that area.

This not only highlights the economic potential provided by cities, which can serve as a melting pot for ideas, innovation and networking opportunities, but it also serves as a reminder that land in UK cities is at a premium.

And the benefits are not restricted to within city limits, either – more than a fifth of working individuals who live outside of cities have jobs based within cities.

We are proud to be able to help support this prosperity for both cities and the towns that surround them, by providing serviced offices in Manchester and London that allow fledgling firms to get off the ground in prime postcode areas, without being priced out of the market.

About our serviced offices in London and Manchester

We have premises providing serviced offices in London on the Isle of Dogs, and in Manchester with serviced offices in Salford Quays adjacent to MediaCity UK.

Tenants get high-quality furnished office space in prime London and Manchester locations, with the flexibility of meeting rooms to hire on-site on an ad hoc basis.

Alternatively if you just want a prime address but don’t need the physical office space, we provide virtual offices in London and Manchester too, allowing you to route phone calls and postal mail via a prime professional address whether you work from home, the local pub or coffee shop, or anywhere else for that matter.

The Talk of the Town report recommends a focus on improving skills in all parts of the country, while recognising the role cities play in their local economy and community.

We think serviced office space caters to both of these recommendations – providing affordable, scalable business premises for new and growing firms in desirable locations in Manchester and London.

Meanwhile, virtual offices in London and Manchester allow you to tap into the prestige of an address adjacent to Canary Wharf or MediaCity UK, while working from your home in a nearby town or even from a location further away.

To find out more about how our serviced offices and meeting rooms in Manchester and London can help you to set up or grow your business, get in touch today.

You can call the Serviced Office Company on 0800 319 6600 or email info@servicedofficecompany.co.uk with any general enquiries about our serviced offices, meeting rooms and virtual offices.

Virtual offices let you cancel the winter commute

Posted on by aleks

Virtual offices can be the answer to winter woes as the darker mornings and evenings start to bite at either end of the working day, leaving more and more of us trying to navigate urban streets and country roads in the dark.

Putting the clocks back may gain us an extra hour of daylight in the mornings, but it’s at the cost of a darker evening commute – so why put yourself through a commute at all, if you don’t have to?

Our virtual offices in London and Manchester give you all of the benefits of a static address in a desirable location, with postal forwarding and telephone call forwarding, but without the need to come into the office in person.

How do virtual offices work?

With our virtual offices in Manchester and London, you get a physical postal address at our premises, with your business name at the top, as well as a non-geographic telephone number for customers to use.

Everything is unbranded – except for your own brand – so if a client, supplier or anybody else writes or calls, the post will be forwarded on to you or the telephone call transferred immediately to your number.

All of this is without you being on the premises in person, so you are free to work from home and avoid that freezing, dark morning and evening commute, or even to work from wherever you happen to be if you travel a lot.

Virtual offices, real meeting rooms

Working from virtual offices still gives you the option of accessing our physical premises too – you can book meeting rooms in London and Manchester at the same address as your virtual office whenever you need somewhere to meet clients, candidates and potential investors.

And if you ever decide you want physical premises for your business, we also provide serviced office space at those same addresses, so you can seamlessly transition to a bricks-and-mortar business as you grow.

But in the meantime – or indefinitely, if you choose – virtual offices put you in control of where you spend your working day and can mean even on these short winter days, you can time your meetings to allow you to drive to and from our premises in daylight.

Reduced meeting room rates with virtual offices

Finally, on top of all of the other benefits of our virtual offices – lower overheads, transparent and professional services, and the flexibility to switch to on-site serviced offices if you wish – you also get reduced meeting room rates.

That means if you decide to hold a meeting, interview, sales pitch or any other in-person appointment in our meeting rooms in Manchester or London, as a virtual offices customer it will cost you less.

It’s just one more way we at the Serviced Office Company allow you to work flexibly from a prime business address, while making sure you hold on to more of the profits you make from your business activities – not just in the winter months, but all year round.

How offices in Salford Quays became a destination for local commuters

Posted on by aleks

Three decades of regeneration have seen offices in Salford Quays become a key destination for commuters from Ordsall, other parts of Salford and Greater Manchester as a whole, according to researchers.

Andreas Schulze Baing and Cecilia Wong are lecturers at the University of Manchester, and recently looked at the beneficial effects of the redevelopment of Salford Quays for local residents, workplaces and commuters.

Their conclusions were published in the September 2018 issue of Town Planning Review by Liverpool University Press and find that while relatively few nearby residents have taken highly skilled jobs in the media organisations and offices in Salford Quays, the area has become one of three key commuter destinations.

30 years of Salford Quays regeneration

The regeneration of Salford Quays dates back to 1985 and the creation of the Salford Quays Development Plan. The first phase of offices in Salford Quays opened in 1987 along with new residential properties, a hotel and a multiplex cinema.

By 1993 the water in the quays was clean enough for bathing and by the year 2000 the Salford Quays Metrolink line and the Lowry Theatre opened, soon followed by the Lowry Outlet shopping centre.

A permanent watersports centre came soon after that, along with the Imperial War Museum in 2002 and of course the construction of MediaCityUK in the latter half of the decade; finally, in 2010, the BBC relocated several departments to the new premises and the MediaCityUK spur of the Metrolink opened.

How have new offices in Salford Quays helped?

The researchers call Salford Quays the ‘jam filling’ of the local area – a concentrated focal point of prosperity and employment opportunities surrounded by the ‘dough’ of its neighbouring areas.

But this prosperity did not come at a cost of less skilled jobs, as the area was largely derelict, so although the majority of employment on the newly redeveloped Quays is highly skilled and highly educated, there have been some new jobs created for less qualified local residents too.

Meanwhile, Salford Quays as a whole has become one of three significant commuter destinations for residents of nearby areas, along with Trafford Park and Manchester city centre.

Work from our serviced offices in Salford Quays

Our serviced offices in Salford Quays put you at the heart of this prosperity and regeneration – with all of the benefits of the local amenities, public transport links and some of the most desirable postcodes in Greater Manchester and the north-west, and arguably the entire country.

We have serviced offices on Clippers Quay in the M50 MediaCity postcode, which was newly created in 2002 as the regeneration of Salford Quays gained pace.

Meanwhile just across Trafford Road, we also have serviced offices on Exchange Quay, which is in the M5 postcode – which previously applied to the MediaCity part of the Quays too.

Both of these give you the desirability of serviced offices in Manchester’s beating heart of business, the Salford Quays and MediaCityUK development, with meeting rooms to hire on-site and a host of complimentary facilities when you take office space in either of our Salford Quays office buildings.

How serviced offices in London are helping the ‘adhocracy’

Posted on by aleks

The Gig Economy sparks plenty of debate in the capital, but for those working in the ‘adhocracy’, serviced offices in London are helping to support sole workers and microbusinesses, new start-ups, and anyone affected by the city’s office space crunch.

In a recent article for Work Design Magazine, Kay Sargent of global design and architecture firm HOK explained that countries all over the world are becoming adhocracies, especially in Asia as economies there move away from being purely industrial.

“The new entrepreneurial spirit in the East is fuelling the rapid growth of many start-up companies that need to enable quick, seamless deployment of their services or creation of their products,” she wrote. “Their hunger for easy access to highly flexible space is fuelling the growth of co-working spaces and fully equipped serviced offices.”

Closer to home, London is witnessing a similar trend, but for different reasons, as the restricted availability of business space is leading to an increase in co-working and serviced offices in communal buildings.

“There’s a major space crunch in London, where the market is being heavily impacted by an influx of creative office start-ups and co-working spaces,” Ms Sargent noted.

How do serviced offices in London help business space go further?

Serviced offices in London give small businesses the opportunity to establish a base in a location that might otherwise not be a realistic option for a sole trader or microbusiness, such as our own shared offices near Canary Wharf on the Isle of Dogs.

The increased use of shared offices helps London business space to go further in a number of ways:

  • Occupants only rent what they need, so there is less excess space left empty and unused.
  • Shared reception areas, kitchen facilities and breakout rooms are more space-efficient.
  • Meeting rooms can be rented as needed, again reducing rooms left empty day upon day.

With the option to expand into larger serviced office space as your company grows, it’s a future-proof way of working that means you only need to rent the space you need, from a single room for one or two people, up to a larger open-plan office floor with networking for multiple workstations.

Why choose serviced office space in London?

Although the Gig Economy is a relatively new buzz term, London has been spearheading flexible working for many years – it even formed part of the preparations for the London 2012 Olympics.

In order to reduce congestion around the Olympic Park, workers in the area were encouraged to adopt flexible working practices if possible in the run-up to the Games, and this proved to be a huge success.

Ms Sargent added in her article that the effort actually led to a drop in congestion during Olympic events as businesses’ flexible working more than offset the rise in tourists and spectators.

With our own serviced offices located just south of the Olympic Park and adjacent to Canary Wharf, we are proud to be able to support the need for serviced office space in London and continue to deliver on the flexibility and efficiency lessons of London 2012 and the rise of the global adhocracy.

Do digital businesses need physical meeting rooms?

Posted on by aleks

With more and more digital businesses doing the bulk of their work online and on computers, how do you know if physical meeting rooms could still help to boost your productivity and employee collaboration?

One digital business provides a better benchmark than most. IBM, whose new Studio opened at their London Southbank head office in 2015, invested $100 million globally into developing new methods of working and new modern workspaces to facilitate that work.

Yet look at it on paper and the IBM Studio looks a lot like many shared office spaces:

  • Breakout spaces for informal collaboration.
  • Separate meeting rooms for more private discussions.
  • Relaxation areas with ping pong tables.

So how do these physical meeting rooms and other collaborative spaces help a digital business like IBM to be more productive than if teams were to collaborate solely online?

Fast and flexible

In a conference paper due to be presented in January 2019, Joao Porto De Albuquerque of the University of Warwick and co-authors look at the working practices used in the IBM Studio, and find some interesting characteristics in the way the physical and virtual worlds interact.

For example, the study notes that IBM Studio’s virtual collaboration tools are laid out in a way that reflects the physical workspace, with groups for each team that shares a physical desk in real life, supported by public and private threads that resemble the breakout spaces and meeting rooms.

The teams also favour face-to-face meetings for faster and more flexible collaboration, including:

  • Informal ‘stand-up’ meetings in the morning to discuss the day’s itinerary.
  • Ad hoc brainstorming sessions attended by anyone who happens to be available.
  • Sketching sessions where plans are put down on paper before being transferred to the virtual space.

One IBM Designer tells the researchers: “Typically we will start with sketches and talk through them so we can iterate quickly. Sketching is much faster than working on a computer; you can work through problems faster by drawing it out and talking about it.”

Councils of war

An even more dramatic finding of the study comes when looking at ‘ephemeral’ use of physical meeting space, for example in response to a major problem such as a flaw in computer programming code.

Here, the IBM Studio team abandon their other work to attend a ‘War Room’ scenario, clustered around a shared display in close physical proximity – again, something a meeting room with audiovisual presentation equipment is ideally suited to achieve.

“In this case, the digital tools and space operated in sync to support quick reaction and immediacy in discussion and focused observation of the problem,” the researchers add.

The conclusion is clear – whether for everyday digital activities or in response to a major problem, physical meeting rooms provide a space for fast, flexible collaboration in a way that cannot yet be fully replicated online, giving digital businesses the best of both worlds to get the job done.

Find out more about our serviced offices and meeting rooms in London by calling the Serviced Office Company on 0800 319 6600 or email davenport@servicedofficecompany.co.uk to enquire about our premises at Davenport House on the Isle of Dogs.

What does biophilic design mean for serviced office space?

Posted on by aleks

Our serviced office space is ideal if you have a love of nature, with plenty of natural materials and potted plants around our office interiors and meeting rooms, and pleasant surroundings with open water adjacent to all of our buildings.

There are plenty of watchwords in modern office design that link with the environment, from sustainability and green business energy, to recycled materials and responsibly sourced furnishings – and these kinds of factors all combine under the theory of biophilic design.

What is biophilia theory?

In short, biophilia is a love of nature, and was introduced by Edward O Wilson in 1984 to describe humanity’s innate connection and tendency to seek out other lifeforms and natural surroundings.

Over the decades since, this has developed into theories including biophilic city design and, in the 2000s, biophilic office designs that allow workers to feel connected to the natural world while in the workplace.

How do you design biophilic serviced office space?

Biophilic design is not all about planting trees in the middle of the floor or grass on the walls, although you’ll find both of those things in some modern office interiors.

Instead, it can incorporate natural materials like wood in office furniture, vibrant plants dotted throughout the office, and views to the outside complemented by artworks that also show landscape views.

Putting the space in serviced office space

Part of biophilic design is just about giving workers a sense of space, and it’s why the old American style of fully enclosed cubicles with no natural light has given way to more open plan, collaborative, modern office interiors.

Again, working in a room with windows is beneficial, as you get natural daylight and views of your surroundings, which in our buildings often means a view out over water.

Power to the people

Even the most comfortable office space can start to feel samey if it’s the only place where you spend time during every single working day, so it’s useful to give people some choice about where they work.

In our buildings, that means the option of heading to the kitchen for refreshments and a break from your desk, or spending some time in a breakout room to clear your head of stress before heading back.

Of course we also have well appointed meeting rooms to rent if you want to get out of the office for a training session or seminar, recruitment day, or to meet with clients and potential investors.

Find our serviced offices in biophilic locations

It’s fair to say that all three of our serviced office buildings offer biophilic surroundings, without taking you out of the heart of the city.

Our northern locations on Exchange Quay in Salford Quays, and Clippers Quay for MediaCity, are both by the water’s edge while just a skimmed stone away from Manchester city centre.

And in the south, you’ll find us at Davenport House on the Isle of Dogs, adjacent to Millwall Docks on the River Thames, and again just a short hop from Canary Wharf for the best balance between a city setting and natural surroundings.

How does serviced office space boost productivity?

Posted on by aleks

When you rent serviced office space and meeting rooms, it’s not just space you’re getting – there are all kinds of things to take into account, such as the layout of the office, on-site facilities, furniture and so on.

But how do all of those things add up to boost productivity and keep your employees (and yourself) in good health and good spirits?

In a new paper published by the University of Lisbon in Portugal, Alicja Papierska looks at some of the characteristics of modern office space and their impact on the welfare and productivity of workers.

“We live in times when office space is playing a key role in companies’ and employees’ lives,” she writes. “Employees’ productivity is a fundamental element of any business’s success.”

Ergonomic furniture

Ergonomic furniture is a good start to keep workers comfortable for longer, but can also increase productivity and reduce the risk of aches, pains and repetitive strains, especially when some foliage is introduced into the office as well.

Ms Papierska writes: “Ergonomic furniture and introduction of plants are the elements which increase productivity and protect health of both employees and customers.”

This is beneficial not just for short-term productivity, but over the long term, as a more comfortable office interior means less chance of needing a day off due to poor posture, back ache, wrist and hand pains, and so on.

Activity based working

The principles of activity based working mean that the workplace should suit the day-to-day activities of the workers, rather than expecting individuals to adapt to the restrictions of their workspace.

Examples of how to do this include:

  • A mix of private and open spaces.
  • Areas in which to eat or take on refreshments.
  • Creative spaces and somewhere to relax.
  • Rooms that allow for exercise and activity.
  • Meeting rooms for privacy and collaboration.

You’ll find all of these in our serviced office spaces and meeting rooms, breakout rooms and kitchen areas, so you’re never stuck in one place for the duration of your working day.

The research summarises the importance of having areas where employees can work together while also relaxing: “Common space is designed to increase collaboration among employee and to reduce the work stress.”

Positive distractions

A distracting environment is not good news for productivity, but positive distractions can be – instead of just taking your attention away from your work, they are a way to distract you from any stress you might be feeling, or just give you a little boost over the course of the day.

Some of these elements overlap with an activity based workplace, for example creative breakout spaces, areas for preparing and consuming refreshments, beverages, snacks and full meals, and areas where you can get some exercise.

Others are about how the interiors are decorated – vibrant colours, open plan layouts that hold employees’ interest for longer – as well as the connection with the exterior through appealing window views and plenty of natural light, all of which can keep you feeling energised and help you to face up to any overtime when 5pm arrives.

Why our serviced office buildings have meeting rooms, kitchens and breakout spaces

Posted on by aleks

Man with a cup of coffee

Our serviced office buildings provide you with well appointed work spaces, with on-site amenities including kitchen areas, breakout rooms and meeting rooms to hire for anywhere from an hour to a full day.

Successful businesses have been built on less – former Dragons’ Den panellist James Caan famously started out in a broom cupboard that he rented purely so his business had a Pall Mall address.

When associates came to visit he would meet them at the door, tell them it was too hectic to talk in the office, and take them to a nearby coffee shop instead.

But with our serviced office buildings in London and Manchester, there’s no need to put up this kind of pretence to get a valuable postcode – you can have one of your own with informal breakout spaces on-site.

We have serviced office space in E14, adjacent to Canary Wharf on the Isle of Dogs, and in Manchester’s desirable M5 and M50 postcodes for serviced offices on Exchange Quay and MediaCity.

A refreshing opportunity

Of course there’s nothing wrong with taking clients to a coffee shop – there are several within easy reach of our serviced office buildings in Manchester and London alike – but it doesn’t give you the privacy you sometimes need.

With our kitchen areas and the refreshments provided in our meeting rooms for hire, you’re never far from a hot drink on a cold day, or at the end of a long journey, and you don’t even have to leave the building.

Our breakout spaces provide even more space in which to relax, and are equipped with telephones in case you need to make or take a call while you’re there – so plenty of business takes place in these comfortable surroundings.

And as our serviced offices are fully furnished with brand name ergonomic office furniture, there’s comfort to be found throughout the day at your desk too, no matter what size office you work from.

A private place to meet

When you do need to meet guests in a private place – to discuss business deals, interview candidates in a confidential setting, and so on – our meeting rooms to hire on an hourly, half-day or daily basis give you the space you need.

Our serviced office buildings are equipped with a variety of sizes of meeting rooms, from spaces suitable for one-on-one conversations, to full-scale conference rooms with presentation equipment and refreshments in the room as standard.

If you rent a small serviced office from us, this gives you the scalability you need to meet larger groups of investors and associates, or hold group recruitment days and team-building exercises, all under the same roof.

And if you rent a large serviced office, it’s a chance to get away from the hubbub of your colleagues so you can hold business meetings in quieter and confidential surroundings, whatever size of meeting room you choose to hire for the occasion.

Together, our serviced offices, meeting rooms to hire, breakout spaces and kitchen areas combine to provide you with flexible and scalable workspace in both formal and informal environments – everything you need to welcome guests the way you want without having to leave the building.