By Business & Finance Regus, the global workspace provider, has opened its sixth location in Ireland.
The new business centre is in The Chase, a landmark building in Sandyford, Dublin and provides a range of fully-equipped workspace options and business services, including a business lounge, part-time and virtual offices, serviced offices, meeting rooms and video conferencing. Options include a telephone answering and post handling service, IT and telecoms and administrative support.
Regus currently has four other centres across Dublin and one in Cork. Enquiry rates are at an all-time high, particularly from the tech and digital, aviation finance, recruitment and financial sectors.
The Sandyford centre is attracting a wide variety of business users, from large corporate customers, including Mastercard, to business people dropping in to use the business lounge as somewhere productive to work between meetings or on business trips, thanks to its proximity to the M50.
Conor Riordan, principal of Riordan Insurances regularly works on the move. Riordan has a permanent office in Drogheda but regularly uses his Businessworld Gold card to access Regus business lounges in Dublin. He comments: “It’s useful to have access to drop-in workspace which I can use when I’m on my way to visit customers. Not only can I can be much more productive in a business centre than in a noisy café, it also means that I have the option of staying in Dublin for longer and don’t have to waste time travelling all the way back to Drogheda to do my work. ”
Flexible working and the ever-more mobile workforce is also fuelling demand for ‘third place’ workspaces, which bridge the gap between the permanent office and the home. Regus is at the forefront of developing this new breed of work hub and is currently rolling out Regus Express centres across Europe.
Current partners include Shell in France and Germany, which is rolling out Regus Express centres at petrol stations and motorway service areas; all the ‘big four’ motorway service area operators in the UK; Heathrow, Gatwick and Birmingham airports; and British Land shopping centres in the UK. Regus is actively looking for third place partners in Ireland.
Karen Lawlor, country manager for Ireland at Regus, comments: “We are excited to open our new centre in Sandyford which marks another step in our expansion across Ireland and are already witnessing strong demand for our flexible workspace in South Dublin’s premier business location.
“The market for our services in Ireland had remained strong these past few years. The flexibility our business model offers allows firms to channel all resources into their core business rather than worrying about managing premises, setting up IT infrastructure, or hiring a receptionist for instance.
“The rise of remote and mobile working is leading to huge demand for drop-in space, such as our business lounges, as more and more firms realise that they don’t necessarily need permanent offices. In fact, they can become a hindrance to the modern, agile business. We know that over half of Irish firms found inflexible property leases to be a major contributor to their financial distress during the recession.”
