Return to Work
Influx of Capital from Private Equity Powers Hybrid Workplace Growth
January 24th, 2022Work is at an Unprecedented Junction with an Inevitable Conclusion
November 3rd, 2021
2 Workplace Experience Deals in 1 Day Signals Growing Competition for Dominance
The recent acquisitions of Office App and Lane by HqO and VTS respectively, both announced on 19thOctober, are the latest indication that well-funded workplace experience app suppliers are seeking to gain dominance. The market is still fragmented given the number of players – over 100 suppliers globally, according to our Workplace Experience Apps report. HqO, a […]
Hybrid Work Models Challenge Offices to Compete with Homes
Office occupancy has reached its highest levels since March 2020 over the past month. Driven by high vaccination rates and the return of children to school in major markets, September has recorded an 18-month high of 87% occupancy compared to pre-lockdown levels, according to data from Metrikus. We may still have turbulence ahead but this is […]
Funding Boom in a Maturing Occupancy Analytics Market
There is strong competition for both funding and projects as many startups and established players consolidate their position and vie for business in the occupancy analytics sector for commercial office space. With over 220 companies vying for business, the market for technology platforms that locate and map people and workspaces is crowded. Three startups, Density, Locatee and Mapiq have taken the […]
Disruption, Complexity, & Consolidation: The Workplace in the COVID Era
“The age of remote work is upon us,” they say. After almost 18 months of lockdowns, stay-at-home orders, and workplace safety policies that have prevented the vast majority of workers from going into the office, employees and employers have learned to accept remote work. As the pandemic rolls on around the world, remote work is […]
How Far We Really Are From AI-Enabled Smart Buildings
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been a symbol of futuristic technological development since the mid-1950s but for the vast majority of that time it has been limited to the imaginations and research of academics and science fiction writers. In the last 10-years, however, our increasing computational capabilities have begun to lay the foundations for practical applications […]
From the Sidewalk of the City to the Sidewalk of the Building
The pandemic has been incredibly disruptive to the real estate sector, and perhaps the biggest cancellation of the COVID-19 era so far is Google’s Sidewalk Labs project in Toronto. The Quayside redevelopment project was still in planning phases and held back by a resolute citizen movement that focused on issues of data privacy and corporate […]
Integrated Access Control Can Create Secure “Virus-Smart” Buildings
We have been talking about the return to the workplace for over a year and while we must be closer to that happening, there is no clear end to the pandemic in sight. Vaccine rollouts have certainly accelerated our path to the end of the crisis, but that end is unlikely to be a definable […]
Maintaining Our Buildings During the Global Pandemic
During the last 12 months, since the pandemic triggered mass lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, the focus of the commercial real estate sector has been on buildings being empty and how or when they can safely welcome occupants back. The truth, however, is that buildings have not been completely empty because, even in a lockdown, buildings […]