MANILA, Philippines - Once upon a time, an office meant a long lease; a desk for each person; and a meeting room that was either empty most of the time or never available when you needed it.
None of these arrangements suited the needs of small businesses. As well as being expensive, they denied them the flexibility to:
- grow rapidly, or scale back their overheads if finance is tight
- offer working practices that attract talented staff
Fortunately, setting up an office is more flexible and affordable nowadays. Companies can follow a simple checklist for selecting their office space, and in the process help staff to work more productively and spend less time commuting. You need to look for:
- Premises that meet local regulations
- The right location for your image
- Space to work
- Places to meet
1. The right premises
Businesses need premises that comply with local regulations. This encompasses anything from qualifying for a trade licence to meeting health & safety requirements.
Such protocols can be daunting if entering a new market. However, using serviced offices can smooth the way because these aspects are managed for you, leaving you free to concentrate on the core business.
An additional attraction of using serviced offices is that you outsource elements such as reception, IT connectivity and cleaning saving both time and the cost of hiring support staff.
2. The right location
A good location reassures potential partners and clients, and gets you closer to them. Regus’ network of 12 locations in the UAE now encompasses prime locations from Sheikh Zayed Road to Dubai Festival City and Abu Dhabi’s Sowwah Square. There will also soon be a centre in Downtown Dubai, offering an instant image boost to SMEs.
3. The right meeting space
Meetings run better if participants are not distracted, and holding them in coffee shops or open-plan offices is not usually a recipe for a good outcome. But that doesn’t mean you need a permanent meeting room, which will still cost you rent and running costs even if it sits empty all year.
A more cost-effective alternative is to use pay-as-you-go meeting or seminar rooms, often available for as little as an hour. Ideally, such rooms will be available at the same location as your office, and this could be one of your criteria for choosing premises.
4. The right workspace
The days of one-person, one-desk are disappearing because so many people do their jobs remotely. Almost six in ten (57%) senior business people in the UAE now work away from their main office for at least half the working week. Paying rent on desks that may be unused half the time is effectively money wasted.
Instead, use modern office arrangements such as flexible workplaces or hotdesking. These facilitate mobile ways of doing business and often cost less than traditional fixed spaces. Moreover, in Regus research, 75% of senior business people confirm that flexible working practices such as giving choice over work locations and hours improves productivity.
So, in addition to your main office, offer staff access to professional workspace in different business zones in the UAE or further afield. Walk-in business lounges allow mobile workers to find a place to concentrate, catch up with paperwork, connect to secure wifi, use printers or couriers and meet contacts. They can use these “third places†as an office closer to home, a temporary base when travelling, or to fill time productively between appointments.
A few other things to think about
That checklist covers the physical aspects of what to look for when you set up an office, while these ideas will smooth the setting-up process.
Ready for business: the sooner you can get your office up and running, the sooner you can generate business and cashflow. That’s why there’s a lot to be said for choosing office space that is ready-to-use and fully equipped.
Look after the cash: at a time when 75% of business people in the Middle East say lack of access to credit is a deterrent to entrepreneurs, anything that can help you manage your finances is a boost. One way to do this is to use flexible workspaces where no upfront capital investment is required.
Stay flexible: life is often unpredictable for SMEs. Revenues can come faster than expected, or stall temporarily because of late payments or a lost contract. Because of this, look for arrangements that will accommodate both good times and bad, and allow you to scale up or down quickly.
The good news is that flexible workplace arrangements cover all of these angles and there are plenty of options available in the UAE and wider Middle East. Setting up an office is nothing like the chore it used to be.