With its strong brands such as Regus, Spaces, HQ and Signature, IWG is still by far the world leader in flexible working solutions, with its 3,308 sites worldwide, located in more than 1,100 cities and 120 countries. This compares with, for example, 764 addresses developed by the other big name in the sector, WeWork, in 38 countries.
A leader that is now taking full advantage of the accelerating trend towards a hybrid working model. Covid has come and gone, reinforcing the demand from businesses for flexibility in the organisation of their workspaces. Last June, IWG noted an increase of 15 % in this demand in the UK compared with the pre-pandemic level, and even 43 % in the United States. In the first three quarters of 2021, IWG's offer attracted more than 1,100 companies, including two million new users of its network. An unprecedented figure for the company since its creation three decades ago.
"The fundamental change in the way people work gives IWG a positive boost in the medium and long term"says Mark Dixon, CEO of IWG. The group's founder notes that, according to internal studies, " companies listed on the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 are three times more likely to want to use a hybrid model than those wishing to continue their activities as before."
The hybrid working model, a growth driver for IWG
And what's true across the Atlantic is just as true in other parts of the world. As part of its development, the Group has experienced urbi et orbi openings last year, ranging from a Regus in Jakarta to Spaces coworking centres in Bogota and Casablanca, the latter in a building complex designed by Norman Foster, l'Anfa Place. In Budapest, the top-of-the-range Signature brand has set up shop in a glass and chrome building designed by Zaha Hadid.
The world's business hotspots have not been forgotten, with a Spaces in London's upmarket Kensington district and another in New York's Lower Manhattan. The pioneering coworking brand has also taken advantage of the year 2021 to expand its offering in Philadelphia and Chicago. While IWG currently offers 1,000 locations in 450 towns and cities in the United States, the group believes it can still double in size in this market in order to be present in a thousand towns in total.
But while business megacities obviously remain attractive, IWG's growth is being driven above all by the development of flexible workspaces. in medium-sized towns as well as in residential areas on the outskirts of major cities. "We've seen companies all over the world start to move their operations to where their employees actually live.said Mark Dixon. Over the last two years, IWG has opened almost all its new centres in non-urban environments."
This also explains IWG's increased use of local partners to establish itself more rapidly in all these secondary areas. Franchise partnerships increased by 350 % last year. While this development model is only just beginning in France, having been slowed by the crisis, it is already being put into practice elsewhere. In Saudi Arabia, for example, IWG has been using this model for several years to cover the country, with 14 Regus centres already open, to which were added last year an HQ in Jeddah and a Spaces in Riyadh.
This trend is set to accelerate. In Thailand, for example, IWG has signed an agreement for 40 centres with Ratanakorn Asset in 2021 to network the country from Chiang Mai to Phuket. The same is true in India, with several partnerships to open around thirty centres in Delhi, Rajasthan, Kashmir, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh.
Visit AfricaIt is also through this channel that IWG can already, or will be able to, offer addresses in Egypt's new administrative capital, à Lomé in Togo, Tripoli in Libya, Conakry in Guinea or Libreville in Gabon. IWG is also taking advantage of a partnership signed in 2017 with Salaam Properties to develop business centres in the Horn of Africa, including four in Ethiopia and three in Djibouti, one of which already opened last year.
While IWG offers a subscription package giving access to all the group's addresses worldwide, business travellers can expect to find new solutions as they travel around Europe. As part of this franchise development strategy, five Regus centres are expected to open in Poland and a further ten in Romania, while in Scotland, three business centres are due to open in Lanarkshire, between Edinburgh and Glasgow.
In parallel with this franchise development and the organic growth of its brands, IWG has expanded its product range with the launch of theacquisition of one of Italy's leading coworking firmsCopernico, with 84 outlets across Italy. This strengthens its offering of local brands such as Stop&Work in France, Basepoint in the UK, The Office Operators in the Benelux countries and Open Office in Japan and Korea. In another, more original partnership, IWG has taken a stake in a start-up offering coworking spaces exclusively for women, The Wingalready present in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and soon in Boston and Chicago. It goes to show that the boom in hybrid working solutions knows no gender and no borders.
