Dworkin have been working with IWG, the leader in the Serviced Office market and Workplace revolution for over 20 years and during that time have helped them grow their workspace at an unprecedented pace.
- Leader of fully serviced workspaces - offices, co-working and meeting rooms, IWG is the fastest growing workspace provider in its field
- Together, we are able to open up to 40 serviced offices at any one time, fully equipped with IT technology across multiple countries, regardless of size
- Fine-tuned processes and intelligent IT infrastructure planning are prerequisites for success
Brave new world
Digitalisation and new technologies are transforming our working environment and IWG is leading the new revolution. Today, more than 2.5 million people worldwide benefit from their workspaces, communities and services.
No-one in the industry is growing so fast. Founder Mark Dixon plans to have ten thousand offices by 2020, and has an ambition to catch up with giants like Starbucks or McDonalds. And today its ambitious plans are hampered only by the capacity of construction companies and administrative tasks
IWG and Dworkin in 2018
112
newly opened centres
25,486
new workspaces
10,752
total hours spent on projects
84,000
kg of technology transported
An office without internet? You must be joking!
In 1989, when IWG was founded, the office was defined by having a chair, desk and telephone. Today you can open an office without tables, but no-one would rent an office today without Internet connectivity
But how do you prepare the necessary IT infrastructure when you have to open 300-400 new offices each year? Tenant contracts are signed and the IT infrastructure must run flawlessly from the moment the client moves in.
The answer is a combination of good preparation, honed processes and the right people.
Our long and successful collaboration with IWG (formerly Regus) is a testimony to our ability to correctly predict and plan for every eventuality and to focus on the key deliverables to get a site up and running on time.
After 20 years of co-operation we can proudly say that we are able to equip any IWG serviced office within a week regardless of whether there are 100 or 1000 workplaces.
Spaces La Défense
We are all different, we all have different demands on our working environment. That’s whyIWG offers its services under several different brands, each offering a different design and level of service.
Spaces La Défense in Paris in the heart of Europe's largest business district is one of the best co-working experiences on offer today. The take up confirms beyond doubt it’s appeal. In just three months, 110% of the new office capacity was leased.
9
floors
64
coworking desks
74
dedicated desks
12
meeting rooms
New centre opening timeline
IWG is able to open its entry line of office spaces within eight weeks of signing a new lease.. It may take up to three months to open a higher specification location such as Spaces, as furniture is made to measure and longer delivery times are to be expected.
From an IT point of view, the crux of each project is the number of server rooms, the reliability and speed of the ISP and the technology in the building. But few can imagine what logistics headaches that introduces, when for example there is only one elevator and the toilet is on the ground floor!
Preparation
The biggest IT challenge for anyone in fitting out a new office space is the correct layout of the infrastructure. Especially for large buildings.
In the case of IWG we are able to rely on our experience thanks to our long-term relationship with them. We can prepare specifications more quickly and accommodate the entire infrastructure into a specific floorplan. This prevents delays in ordering hardware and its associated pre-staging at our Integration Hubs
Day by day on site
The first two days on site are always dedicated to the preparation of the underlying IT infrastructure which is, at the end of the day, invisible to the clients.
When goods arrive from our central warehouse to the site, they first undergo a thorough inspection. Has anything been lost along the way? Has anything been damaged in transport? Everything on site is checked by our expert.
On the first day, we also check the site and the status of the building and progress of the fit out. Sometimes construction work is delayed and we need to come up with a plan so that we can manage our deliverables on the schedule of works.
Our technicians on site connect all the IT kit together and get the network live. The time we spent in the preparation phase saves valuable time now. All parts of the infrastructure have already been tested in our Integration Hub, so everything works as expected. The local technicians are proactive and solve whatever issues that arise. And at the same time, our network engineers sat in our Integration Hubs remotely configure the network devices with the location’s network and security specifics.
Day three is reserved for clean up work. We label cables, connect phones, equip the meeting rooms and reception.
The final day is devoted to fine-tuning and handing over a tested, working IT and Telephony service, Training of Regus staff, Clean up & final configuration, Handover & documentation and Last minute snagging.
The secret of success? Dworking hard: total focus on getting the job done! Regardless of everything else going on around us!
We recognise and have even embraced the challenge to deliver ever more quickly and the headaches of potential construction and ISP delays. A lot of work is interdependent and any delay can jeopardise the planned opening date. So we don't waste our time looking for excuses when we hit a problem; we don’t down tools until everything is ready for us. We concentrate on finding a solution, just getting the job done and hitting that deadline at all costs.
