LREF 2017: Real estate is a tech industry with a “paramount” obligation to serve a flexible occupier base, a London Real Estate Forum panel argued this morning.
Riya Pabari, digital strategy consultant at Founders Intelligence, said the boom in tech start-ups has forced real estate to accept technological changes and evolve into an agile and adaptable industry.
With 30% of Americans and Europeans working independently amid growing connectivity, occupier demands are becoming more complex while the need for a long lease is shrinking. The shift also means the end user in real estate is increasingly the employee rather than the employer.
She said: “We are transitioning away from the notion of jobs to a notion of work and from a notion of wages to a notion of income.”
Tech companies have led the way in “providing people with habitats” where they do their best work, with a variety of spaces that match differences in employees’ wants and needs, Pabari argued. For example, Airbnb’s headquarters, she said, was designed with different spaces inspired by actual Airbnb listings.
Tech companies’ influence on real estate comes from a combination of sheer size, accounting for more than a quarter of office take-up in London this year, and their flexibility.
Toby Ogden, international partner at Cushman & Wakefield, said: “They’re fast growing and new. They’re not bound by a building they fitted out 15 years ago. They have the ability to test and experiment and create new work spaces, and that is now transmitting to other sectors.”
The panel, however, stressed that it is wrong to assume all industries will shift from open-plan offices to hot desking. Every business is focused on their own brand, and space is an extension of a brand, Ogden said.
Rather than stick to one idea of flexible work, real estate needs to be flexible enough to provide for diverse demands.
When asked whether people want to work in flexible spaces rather than open plan offices, Charlie Green, chief executive of The Office Group, said: “We need environments that suit our ability to work anywhere. The choice of where you can work is paramount.
“It might be an open plan office one day and a phone booth another. You have to give people the choice.”
■ Click here to read the latest news from LREF
To send feedback, e-mail karl.tomusk@egi.co.uk or tweet @ktomusk or @estatesgazette
