23rd
Industry Trend: Website Promotes Cost Cutting Through Downsized Offices
A few months ago I ran into a new website called Downsize Your Office while researching office space related websites. At the time, it was unfinished and had a number of articles from aBetterOffice on it. Since then it has taken shape and focuses on providing helpful content about how companies can save money by, you guessed it, downsizing their office space footprint.
The concept of downsizing an office continues to gain steam, and the executive suite industry is in a great position to capitalize on the idea. The biggest obstacle remains, however. How can executive suites sell the idea to large enterprise? I used to work in the printer industry and for the last 5 years the push has been to sell services rather than merely printers and related supplies. Huge dedicated sales and sales engineer teams have been deployed to help companies understand that by managing their “fleet” of printers, they can save millions.
In order for the executive suite industry to capitalize, it’s got to mobilize a sales team to aggressively go after this type of business. Unlike the printer industry, where there are several multi-billion dollar companies with tremendous resources and salespeople with experience in selling multi-million dollar contracts to large enterprise, the executive suite industry has only one giant and even they are much smaller than the Xeroxes, HPs and Lexmarks of the world. This will make it tough for the movement to gain traction.
But, I’m not doubting the industry can do it. It’s just a big obstacle, and it’s going to take a long time. I’d keep my eye on Regus, Pacific Business Centers, ABCN and all the large e-brokers (and probably some others) as companies who can get around the obstacle.
