Compass, the Hong Kong-based serviced office space provider, is expanding into Europe, the Middle East and Africa with the appointment of Hadley Dean, formerly head of Eastern Europe at Colliers International, as its new CEO.
Compass, the Hong Kong-based serviced office space provider, is expanding into Europe, the Middle East and Africa with the appointment of Hadley Dean, formerly head of Eastern Europe at Colliers International, as its new CEO.
The appointment takes effect on 1 August.
Compass Offices is currently the fastest-growing serviced offices provider in Asia and is now setting its sights beyond the region, Dean told PropertyEU in an interview.
‘Globally, we are seeing two major trends driving the growth in this sector: firstly the self-employed sector is rapidly expanding; and secondly we're seeing corporates restructure and move back office functions, such as IT, invoicing and human resources to more cost effective locations. This means the traditional country corporate office structure is changing to a more client-focused sales structure that requires more flexible real estate. The business opportunity in serviced offices is immense.’
Dean is aiming to create 70 new centres in the next two years with an initial focus on CEE and Western Europe, as well as Russia, Africa and the Middle East. The average size of the floor space will be around 2,000 m2 involving an investment of some €25 mln.
The company is pitching itself as an unbranded space provider in between the traditional individual office players like Regus and the open plan incubator firms and other start-ups in B or C locations.
This middle segment is still completely open, he added. ‘Flexibility for corporates is becoming much more of a bigger issue. We offer a different choice with no hidden charges and separate bills for services like coffee. We’re the Pepsi that Coca Cola doesn’t have in this sector. We’re fulfilling a real need in the market.’
Founded and headed by Andrew Chung, Compass opened its first centre in Hong Kong in 2009 and has been growing ever since. The company claims to be Hong Kong’s largest serviced office provider and now has offices in more than 50 locations across 10 countries that include Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and the United Arab Emirates.
The story behind the group is simple, Dean said. ‘After years of being a client of other serviced office providers, Chung grew tired of hidden costs, rigid contract terms and poor customer service. He decided to offer an alternative in the market with a new way of working.’
Another foreign player that has moved into the serviced office space in Europe is New York-based WeWork. Founded in 2010, the company targets the creative sector in particular and has grown rapidly in recent years in the US. It now also has locations in London and Amsterdam.