eOffice Case Study

“Knowing and Impressing your Market”

LSE – October 2009
eOffice Vision

eOffice‘s vision is to improve the quality of life of professionals by

providing flexible and competitively priced ready made networked
offices, touch down spaces, meeting and conference facilities in a
contemporary and high tech environment in city centre locations across
the UK, and worldwide, in the future
eOffice – The Concept
eOffice offers beautifully designed, high tech, fully furnished and
serviced offices in city centre locations
eOffice workspace is based on an open plan environment, or “office
neighbourhoods” with few wall to wall partitions, where good aesthetics
and design are combined with information-age technology.
Main service lines are virtual offices (business address and telephone
answering), hot desking (touch down), fully furnished office, meeting
and conference facilities
Additional services include administration and online services, making
eOffice a one-stop-shop for start-ups and SMEs
Strong activities for members, including company visits, networking
events and powerful online communities (faceboook, linkedin, twitter)
eOffice centres provide a suitable office solution for small businesses,
start-ups and self-employed, in particular in the creative, media and
technology sectors
All services are sold online, with an ecommerce platform
Office Trends
Decrease in the amount of workspace allocated to
individuals
Increase in the creation of spaces to support
collaborative work
Growth in the practice of distributed working
Growth in the use of technologies to support
collaboration, connectivity and distributed working
Study by DEGW, 2004
 Market
Office space (serviced offices)
• - Market leader Regus (1000 centres, 135 UK), Servcorp (Austrialian based,
77 centres) , MWB (UK, 60 centres), The Executive Office (UK, 30 centres)
• - Very fragmented market, around 2,000 centres in UK
• - Serviced offices offer little differentiation in terms of design, technology and
services
Conference / meeting rooms
• - Several hotel chains offering conference and meeting rooms
• - Conference and meeting centres (Etc. Venues, De Vere)
Virtual office services
• - Mail Boxes Etc (part of UPS): shipping, postal and business services , over
4,800 locations worldwide
• - FedEx Office (ex Kinkos): postal services, printing and office services
• - eReceptionist: telephone number and answering services
• - DaVinci : virtual office operator
History
Dec 99 – eOffice is accepted as a trademark
Jun 00 – eoffice.net and eoffice.co.uk are purchased
Apr 02 - eOffice opens it first business centre in London Soho
May 02: eOffice launched prepaid hotdesking, then virtual office
Sep 02: eOffice starts Google PPC, Google writes case study
Jan 03: First wi-fi connected business centre in UK
Jun 03: CNN and BBC coverage
Mar 06: eOffice Manchester opens
Mar 07: eOffice Birmingham and Bristol open
Oct 07: eOffice wins British Council of Offices Innovation Award
Nov 07: eOffice becomes first carbon neutral business centre
Jul 08: eOffice eNetwork launched, a network of independent worldwide
business centres
Jan 09: 100 centres joined eOffice eNetwork
Products / Services
Virtual Office: business address, mail forwarding, telephone answering,
messaging
Hot Desking: office access by the hour, with internet connection,
prepaid hot desk hours
Meeting , Conference Rooms and Videoconferencing: available on
hourly or daily basis
Serviced Offices: flexible office space for individuals and companies
from 1 to 20 people
ePA: secretarial services on a prepaid flexible basis
Membership and networking: access to community portal and
networking events. Calendar function in myeOffice blog integrated to
facebook, linkedin, twitter
Services: voice, data, mail, fax to email, printing, copying, secretarial
services, stationery, file storage and digital services
eOffice Soho
eOffice Manchester
eOffice Birmingham
eOffice Bristol
Pricing

Retail concept: £xx.99

Competitive basic prices and adds on (low
cost airline strategy)
Different options: basic / premium
Incentives for prepayment (12+1 foc)
Start low, build volume and slowly increase
prices
Keep competitive prices, while building
volume and add more services
Promotion / Exhibitions
PR - Endorsements - Awards
CNN Coverage 2002 (Design 360)
BBC Coverage 2003 (Dreamspaces)
eOffice Soho Finalist FX Awards 2002 and
eOffice Manchester Finalist FX Awards 2006
eCiffo, Japan (2002): Selected as innovative
offices
IAO (Germany) Office 21 – Future of Work,
2003, selected in their ‘Best Practice Tour’
HSBC Star Award 2004 – Finalist
BCO Innovation Award Overall Winner 2007
BCO Regional Winner 2007 – 2008
RIBA – Good Office Design 2009
 Partnerships

 Key Suppliers
Herman Miller - Case Study 2003
Kristalia – Case Study 2007
Avaya – Telecom
Canon – Imaging solutions

 Key Marketing Partners

British Library – IP Centre
Make your Mark
Microsoft – Biz Spark
Nacue (entreprise societies)
Seedcamp
School for Startups
TiE
‘Distribution’ eOffice 2.0
Search Engines: Google / Yahoo / Bing
Business Networks: Linkedin / Twitter
Social Networks: Facebook, ASmallWorld
Directories: Gumtree / Primefind / Craig’s List
Surveys: Zoomerang / Survey Monkey
Blogs: myeOffice.com / eOffice.tv
Directories encyclopedia: Wikipedia
Photo Sharing: Picasa / Flickr
Video Sharing: YouTube / Vimeo
Virtual Life: Second Life: myeOffice.net
Competitive Advantages
Lower property costs. eOffice operates from business
centres of around 10,000 s.f. average (1/3 the size of traditional
serviced offices), hence a lower property cost
High margin services. More than 50% of eOffice turnover
is derived from high margin services like virtual office, meeting and
conference rooms and videoconferencing and hotdesking, as
compared to traditional full time self contained office space
High Density. Space efficient benches offer higher density in
self contained offices, while the balance of the office space is
dedicated to open plan workstations, giving higher density and
lower fit out cost.
Direct Sales. A high percentage of leads come via search
engines (using SEO techniques and pay per click campaigns)
cutting the agent intermediaries
Selling Points / Benefits to
Clients
City centre locations, next to transport hubs, and leisure and retail,
good quality and representative building
Creative environment with contemporary design and ergonomic
furniture. Variety of working areas, including large lobby, break-out
areas, quite booths, hot desking / open plan.
Advanced technology, including wireless broadband, voice
logging-in anywhere, plasma screens and videoconferencing
Members networking. Registration to myeOffice blog, calendar and
connection via Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter. Regular networking
events called Net Thursday
Flexibility, scalability and competitive pricing. Price below
market leader, options including virtual, part time and full time,
possibilities of changing options every month and to scale up or
down quickly
Outstanding customer service. Friendly, attentive and
professional customer service, from administration, sales, front desk
to IT support, fundamental to long-term client retention
eOffice Client Base

Virtual Office: start ups and overseas clients, around 500 companies
Hot Desking: growing market, mostly consultants, SMEs, but also
corporates
Meeting Rooms: small businesses, creative businesses, large
corporates
Serviced Offices: mostly start ups, small businesses, consultants, rep.
offices, companies with between 1-20 people
Networking, membership: 130,000 opt-in email addresses, 50,000
Linkedin contacts, over 10,000 twitter followers, over 1,000 eOffice card
members
 Growth Opportunities
Virtual Office
• - Offer virtual office worldwide locations via a full ecommerce
solution
• - Buy business addresses, add VOIP numbers and re-sell
eNetwork expansion
• - Extend the eNetwork scheme to 200 centres by 2010
• - Relaunch eOffice membership card scheme via affiliate centres
Management Contracts
• - Develop a management contract scheme
• - Target property companies with prestigious buildings in city centre
locations
• - Landlords to invest in fit out, eOffice management / marketing
Licence/Franchise Agreements
• - Introduce franchise contracts in non-core markets
• - Obtain fixed fee and yearly fees percentage of turnover
Building Knowledge
Properties: Working with property consultant to identify
appropriate sites. Visited hundreds of properties since 2001,
hands on approach
Interiors: Since 2000, visited major design/trade exhibitions
including Salone del Mobile – Milano, and French/Germany/UK
fairs
Technology: Attending small and large technology events,
including Cebit
Start up community: Attending smaller events targeting startup
community in London and UK, and sponsoring many events
Client Networking: Participating to eOffice networking events
(Net Thursday, Coffee Fridays, and Lunch with the CEO), to
understand clients requirements. Several online group resources
too
Knowledge building: Subscribing to over 50 publications, and
several specialised newsletters/blogs/online resources
Importance of the Brand
The name eOffice was first thought in summer 1999 (dot-com boom)
eOffice UK trademark was obtained before business started in Nov 1999
eOffice logo developed by small creative agency in mid 2000
eOffice word and logo is now trademarked in 5 classes of services in
UK, CTM (25 countries of European Community), USA and all countries
signatory of the Madrid Protocol.
Domain names eoffice.net and eoffice.co.uk were bought in 2000
eOffice now owns around 100 domain names, including eoffice.net,
eoffice.co.uk, eoffice.de, eoffice.it, eoffice.fr, eoffice.ru, eoffice.us etc.
Memorable telephone number 0870 888 88 88 and fax number
Complete branding manual available
Simple, memorable brand reduces marketing expenditure and increase
sales potential
Tips and lessons learned

Knowledge: Prepare yourself, study the market,

attend events/fair/presentation and read a lot
Innovate: Whatever you do, do it better than existing
providers, offer benefits to your clients
Marketing: Try different marketing / promotional
activities and then focus on the most effective
People: Even with the best products/services, you
need a good team around you to implement your vision
Perseverance: If you believe in what you do, be
focused and patient, it takes a long time to build a stable
business
The eOffice Car Fleet …

in 2002 (left) and 2012 (right)…