How does a new player like Keeze intend to make its mark in an increasingly crowded coworking market?
Shaun Nelson - We are indeed a fairly recent player. The Keeze concept is to offer private 100% spaces, with the distinctive feature of having totally integrated design, with in-house teams who take care of everything. These are exceptional spaces for meetings, workshops and so on. Recently, we've added several strings to our bow, with events that are more hybrids focused on filming, but also something that's appearing on the market, which is...
How does a new player like Keeze intend to make its mark in an increasingly crowded coworking market?
Shaun Nelson - We are indeed a fairly recent player. The Keeze concept is to offer private 100% spaces, with the distinctive feature of having totally integrated design, with in-house teams who take care of everything. These are exceptional spaces for meetings, workshops and so on. Recently, we've added several strings to our bow, with events that are more hybrids focused on filming, but also something we're seeing emerging on the market, which is the use of one-off offices. Teams come and rent an office space for 10 or 15 people, for just one day.
So it's not really coworking, which generally involves a more individual approach?
Shaun Nelson - Our approach is more geared towards teams who come and take over the premises on an ad hoc basis, for example for one or two days a month or a week, to get together. So it's different from traditional coworking. At 100%, we don't see ourselves as coworkers, or as meeting places. That's also why we created the One day office offer, which didn't really exist on the market: a one-day office offer.
What's in it for the employer, when, despite the widespread use of teleworkingSo, not all companies have suddenly handed over their premises?
Shaun Nelson - There are several uses. Companies that still have their offices need to create highlightsThey want to punctuate the month with exceptional moments. They want to punctuate the month with exceptional moments, to share a strong experience of cohesion and sharing, very much focused on human relationships in order to bring the teams back together. For remote teams, it's more or less the same problem. Rather than having their own offices but not being there three-quarters of the time, they opt for an exceptional space, privatised for a day.
What makes Keeze spaces "exceptional"?
Shaun Nelson - First of all, they have to be central locations: we can be found next to stations, like Saint-Lazare, and generally in business areas. We also put a lot of emphasis on a pleasant environment: most of our spaces have outdoor terraces, some with views of the Eiffel Tower or Montmartre. There's also the whole support dimension, with a wide range of services: the possibility of serving breakfast, a tailor-made catering service, a gourmet break or even an evening cocktail party. These are tailor-made days, depending on what the customer wants to organise and the issues involved.
Do you work with partners to book your spaces?
Shaun Nelson - Yes, we work a lot with specialist players, such as Bird Office, Kaktus or Privateaser. They are very important partners, with whom we have worked very well from the outset.
How did you get through the crisis?
Shaun Nelson - Of course, like most players, we have been hard hit by the crisis. That said, it has given us an opportunity, because it has allowed us to focus on areas that we had already been thinking about for a long time, but hadn't had the time to put in place. Demand has exploded for this type of new product, and I'm thinking in particular of everything to do with hybridisation. For us, this hybridisation is twofold: between the physical and the digital, which will continue. That's why we've put technological resources in place. And there is also a hybridisation of uses. The difference between a day in the office, in a meeting room or with customers is diminishing. Uses are mixed. We're no longer just looking for a space for productivity, but also for exchanging ideas, sharing and perhaps even receiving customers.
Are all your venues now technically ready to host hybrid events and meetings?
Shaun Nelson - There are several hybrid needs: it can be a simple videoconference, or it can go further, with more advanced filming, and we have an offer with a mobile control room. We are able to set up a studio in each of our spaces, right up to a film set. We have three levels of services: videoconferencing, fairly light face-to-face/remote filming, control room, director, camera, back office control room. And then we can go right up to the set, with a director and three cameras for communication needs aimed at the whole group. And it's also something that we're seeing more and more, brands are appropriating the medium, creating their own media to communicate internally.
You mentioned location as a key criterion: how can we compete with heavyweights like WeWork and, more recently, the Accor with Wojo ?
Shaun Nelson - We're dealing with different issues. For coworking, you need a workstation close to home, for break the office routine at home. Our positioning consists above all of assemble teams. We are therefore in a epicentral logic It has to be easily accessible to everyone. So we won't be aiming to cover the whole country, but rather to stay close to the centres where everyone can get together easily. We're big believers in this approach, which reduces the need to travel and the need for transport.
How do you differ from meeting rooms and business centres?
Shaun Nelson - The first stage took place a long time ago with players such as ChateauformThey were able to create this made-to-measure concept for meeting spaces. It's a concept that's getting a bit old now, and we're seeing a number of new players trying to rejuvenate the concept with a more modern offering. We're part of this approach, with this differentiation that means we're not going to share these moments of conviviality with three, four or five other companies. This is where we create a tailor-made offer for a company that needs a lot of services.
Who are your customers and what are their uses? Have these typologies changed with the crisis?
Shaun Nelson - Initially, we work with customers from the Cac 40 and SBF 120 indexes, i.e. mainly large groups, for training and workshops. Increasingly, we're seeing that the highlights are becoming more recurrent, focusing on mini-seminars: over and above productivity, we're also looking for a regular opportunity to share with our teams. We're also now welcoming start-ups, small businesses and large groups that are looking at how to manage their offices, with smaller surface areas, while creating highlights by coming to rent a space once a week or once a month. In this case, the space is not really used as a meeting room; it's closer to an office, so you need to be able to find different elements in the space. You need to be able to have a one-to-one meeting with your colleagues in a private space, while another member of the team is doing a job. videoconferencing in a phone box, or at another time get everyone together for a conference. So we're really halfway between using a space for meetings and using a space for offices in the same day. This is something quite new and it requires a great deal of versatility and modularity of space to meet all these needs.
What percentage of your business is currently with us, and how soon do you think you'll be able to return to more substantial levels?
Shaun Nelson - It's very small: our business must be around 15%. I'm like everyone else: I'm still waiting for the Thursday announcements... Things will probably improve in September.
Has the crisis prompted you to cancel site openings, or to look for new opportunities?
Shaun Nelson - That's the paradox of this period: there's both a very strong impact on business and this crisis may be an accelerator, a creator of value in the near future for society. Practices have changed, and we may find that we have more recourse to coworking, to spaces like ours, to get together. In the meantime, we've had to postpone some openings. We have to be cautious: there are variants, the vaccination is not yet complete... Nevertheless, we plan to open new spaces from September onwards. There is another impact on our positioning, which we have reoriented towards more responsible events. This was an important issue for us from the outset, but we wanted to emphasise it and develop it over the last three to six months. We're in the process of changing our articles of association to become a 'Mission Company', with very strong objectives in terms of environmental and social responsibility. This is also part of our new roadmap for the coming years.
The place of production will be the home office and the office where we will meet several times a week, a place for sharing.
What openings are planned? Are you thinking of venturing outside Paris?
Shaun Nelson - We remain focused on Paris. We have plans for a new space in the next three or four months. We're planning to open a further 1,500 sq. m., and within three years we'll have opened around a hundred outlets.
How do you see the office of tomorrow?
Shaun Nelson - There is a real desire among employees to telework two or three days a week. The home office will become increasingly important. This also means that the office will no longer be a place of "habit", but a place where you have to create the desire, the exceptional. I think we're going to move from a place of production to a place of convergence, sharing, cohesion and pooling. Companies will need to rethink it as a space that conveys the company's values and really makes employees want to get together. The production space will be more like the home office, and the office where people meet up several times a week will be a place for sharing.
