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GCUC In Conversation With Rob Teel: Yardi, WeWork and the Future of Coworking
Last week the UK’s coworking community gathered in London for GCUC UK. It was a fantastic day filled with fascinating sessions and a brilliant opportunity to network with industry peers. The last session of the day was an engaging fireside chat between GCUC Founder, Liz Elam, and Yardi’s President of Global Solutions, Rob Teel. Their conversation covered Yardi’s vision for coworking, WeWork and the impact AI is set to have on the industry.
As one of the largest real estate software providers in the world, it is not surprising that Yardi is investing heavily in the coworking and flex workspace industry. With 10,000 employees working in over 50 offices around the world and with $2 billion in revenue, Yardi is an established player in real estate technology. In terms of coworking, however, Yardi is relatively new to the sector being latest asset class that it has focused on, alongside multifamily and traditional commercial real estate like office, industrial, and retail.
Yardi’s Vision For Coworking
Teel was quick to point out how important the coworking sector is to the business, despite it being one of the newer verticals for the company. Anant Yardi recently mentioned that while coworking only makes up 2% of Yardi’s revenue, he spends 80% of his time focusing on it and it is very much the same for Teel.
What attracted Yardi to coworking?
The question was then posed, what led Yardi to its interest in coworking? Teel explained that it was led by an interest from existing customers. Landlords and office owners form a good part of Yardi’s revenue stream and the world of real estate is unquestionable changing. Coworking is, therefore, seen by Yardi as important to its customers in two key ways: “For office owners going through this transition, it’s a crucial hedge for us that we believe is going to be a big part of the future of office, complementing existing traditional office space.”
“It’s not just that we picked an asset class and decided to invest in it. It came from a place where our existing clients started asking for solutions. The world of real estate is changing, with a convergence of what used to be long-term leases into more flexible arrangements. The relationship between owners and tenants is evolving, and we’re adapting to meet those needs. It’s a very exciting place to be.”
Rob Teel, President of Global Solutions, Yardi
The industry’s potential for growth
Currently, there are over 7,000 coworking organisations in the US and about 20,000 globally. The percentage of square footage dedicated to coworking is still comparatively low, around 1.5% to 2% of total office space. However, according to Teel, Yardi is very optimistic about the sector’s growth: “Our bet is that this becomes a much larger percentage, potentially over 10%.”
Yardi’s coworking software, Yardi Kube, is already making big strides in the sector, serving over 250 operators and approaching 2,000 sites. To partner with operators more broadly, Yardi’s CoworkingCafe aggregation platform and listing site is assisting them in generating more leads and bookings for their locations. The same platform is also connecting WeWork’s corporate customers to other coworking operators on the CoworkingCafe platform, an important evolution for corporate employee access to coworking. This combination of operations streamlining, lead generation, and networked access is central to Yardi’s vision for coworking and the future of office.
Yardi and WeWork
It was clear from this discussion that Yardi’s coworking software is growing rapidly, already with a global footprint and being adopted by, and connecting, both small and multi-national coworking companies. Teel touched on the impressive project of WeWork’s rollout of Yardi Kube, which has involved replacing its global website, app and billing platform. Prior to this the company had a complex web of legacy systems and a custom tech stack that was expensive to support. Yardi’s coworking software is specifically designed to support coworking and flexible workspaces to operate at scale, and as such, is perfectly placed to support a brand with WeWork’s global reach.
“I think if WeWork can turn things around, it will help with valuations and open up funding opportunities for everyone in the industry.”
Rob Teel, President of Global Solutions, Yardi
At the same time, Teel noted how Yardi has “continued to onboard smaller and mid-sized operators onto the same platform. We try to hide the complexity for the smaller operators and turn it back on for the larger ones, but it is still the same system being used across the board.”
AI and The Future of Coworking
The conversation then shifted to the future and how AI will impact the coworking operations. Teel pointed towards his experience in the BTR and multi-family sector, which “sometimes leads the way in terms of technology”. The two key areas posited as having the potential to be transformed by AI are in prospect flow and the generation of new leads: “In coworking, the volume of leads generated and the flow of prospects is much higher than in traditional real estate. Having a prospect journey and a web presence that generates leads is so important and generating tours is the number one thing you need to do from that prospect journey.”
One of the features Yardi’s BTR software has released recently, which will soon be coming to the coworking management platform, is a chatbot that sits on clients’ websites “24 hours a day waiting to help someone understand a space, educate them on a space and it has what we call ‘polite persistence’ that is always nudging you towards booking a tour – that is its job.” Yardi’s clients have seen enormous success from this. The rate of booking a tour to view an apartment when using a chatbot is 50% higher than just using a lead form. Yardi has also built a community manager chatbot to support that side of the business as well. “You can take over the chatbot, which is powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, in what we call the ComHub. You can chat with them, text them or even make a phone call all through the ComHub.”
How AI can revolutionise coworking operations
From a coworking perspective, Teel mentioned that Yardi is “taking that AI, which is consumer facing, and embedding it in Yardi Kube. We are also giving a chatbot to the community managers so they can ask questions like: “who are my top customers?” “Whose leases are expiring tomorrow?” “What are my activities for the day?”.”
The main feeling was that AI will revolutionise how efficient both businesses and operational teams can be – boosting both revenues and member satisfaction.
This fireside chat was full of optimism for the future and how the coworking sector looks set for impressive growth in the coming years. Liz Elam certainly echoed this sentiment:
“I’m so excited about the future of coworking and Yardi’s involvement can really change the game and that is what the industry needs.”
Liz Elam, Founder, GCUC
Images from GCUC UK
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