At Your Service: Can approaching real estate as a service help future-proof workplaces?

30 June 2022

A mental shift is underway. No longer are offices simply brick and mortar offerings – increasingly, they are perceived as hospitality services. Combining strategy, technology, and data to deliver digital and physical services to tenants and users will be key to transforming a smart workspace beyond just a space to work.

Working smarter

Flexible working hours and changing safety requirements are increasingly common in the professional environment, pushing organisations to adjust to the demands of hybrid work in the new normal and beyond. Buildings that can adapt – enabling everyone to work efficiently and collaboratively, while nurturing the health of employees – are needed to help offices keep pace with the flux of their environments. In response, companies are adopting smart workplace technology in an attempt to transform their offices into more autonomous buildings that can intuitively accommodate the needs of employees. However, as Lendlease Digital CEO, William Ruh explains, ‘People don’t want smart buildings, people want smart outcomes.’¹

A smart workspace is a more hospitable workspace

The true value of a smart building, or a smart workspace, lies not just in the workplace technology solutions integrated into it but also how they are used to create a dynamic environment that can successfully adapt to the demands of people and organisations. Employees now expect collaborative spaces and programmes that are diverse, inclusive, and sustainable. After all, workers are no longer confined to a single location to work. To entice them back into the office on a regular basis, offices must evolve into places that can offer more than space but optimum work experiences.

Smarter approaches, smarter outcomes

As businesses strive to create more welcoming and environmentally sustainable conditions, Head of Lendlease Digital Asia, Richard Kuppusamy believes that ‘the value of real estate for businesses will increasingly be determined by a different yardstick, and landlords will need to consider a mindset shift in the way they engage with tenants, end users, investors, and developers.’ Cost reductions, flexible leasing models, sustainability, and energy efficiency have joined the list of basic office necessities. Traditional buildings are unable to keep up with these new requirements.

This is where platforms like Lendlease's Podium Property Insights come in. Using machine learning to turn data into actionable insights, it’s an end-to-end solution that seamlessly combines digital workplace technology and building data to help organisations maximise their workplaces’ potential. This innovative new tool is being trialed at Lendlease’s flexible workplace initiative, Csuites, to put the concept of Real Estate as a Service (REaaS) to the test. According to Deloitte’s 2021 Real Estate Predictions, REaaS is ‘an innovation that is being enabled through smart and connected buildings, [shifting] the value focus from offering space to offering digital and physical services to users’². In the same vein, Csuites looks poised to bridge the gap between smart buildings’ capabilities and the smart outcomes people actually want.

The key to a future-proof workplace

To future-proof any workplace, technological advancement alone will not be enough. Smart workspaces have to be able to react quickly to changing employee needs, external factors, financial constraints, and countless other interdependencies while still providing an ideal setting for people to thrive, be productive, and feel at ease.

In the face of the increasingly complex demands businesses and employees are placing on offices, Csuites has proven to be a winning concept. As a dynamic and flexible workspace designed with sustainability in mind, Csuites focuses on delivering value to organisations. From premium office suites to dynamic event spaces, thoughtful amenities to social catalysts, including an outdoor garden terrace, in-house café, and games area, all were designed with a people-first approach. Csuites offers a REaaS model that can help staffers seamlessly keep pace with the future of work, be more productive, think more creatively, and build meaningful connections with one another. Explore what a future-proof workplace can offer your organisation at Csuites - visit us today and experience it for yourself.