workin - City - StrasbourgWe live in a time of constant change. Everything is evolving rapidly, including the way we work. New professions are constantly emerging and this evolution is not ready to stop. Innovation is a reality in all spheres of economic, social and societal activity. Every day, more and more projects are born and people's habits change at the same time.

With the new technologies, everyone, both personally and professionally, now has powerful tools that allow them to train, learn, document, communicate, interact, but also to practice their profession. In addition to being recreational or fun, these tools are also a powerful lever for work, generating purchasing power. Coworking is a perfect illustration of this movement: a practical idea, inexpensive, friendly, enriching, etc... this new organization of shared work is increasingly popular.

The flexibility of the company in phase with a changing market

The changing job market has given rise to new professions encouraged in France, for example, by the advantageous status of micro-entrepreneurship orauto-entrepreneurship. Because it is now possible to launch a project that is important to them at the lowest cost, innovators and creators of all kinds do not hesitate to embark on the adventure of asole proprietorship, often in addition to their main activity, which they keep just in case... This flexibility in administrative procedures has led to a flexibility of companies and a malleability of minds. This has been accompanied by a new offer adapted to these new needs: coworking.

Every connected and portable object, from the computer to the smartphone and the tablet, is a transportable and relocatable office. Equipped with one of these objects, the individual entrepreneur does not need the same space as before. A table, a chair and a high speed internet connection are now enough. But the new coworking spaces also offer many other advantages. This Anglo-Saxon term could be translated by the action of working together. This definition is not exact. Coworking is more precisely a space for working together. It is a place where people who want to work alone or with others can do so in a studious and calm environment and where a wide range of services are offered.

A fragmented market dominated by a few big players

Like all good innovative ideas, many players have rushed to enter the coworking market. It's a fast-growing market, as evidenced by a study by British real estate firm Knight Frank, published in November 2018. In it, we learn that the number of coworkers in the world has increased tenfold in less than 5 years with a growth that promises to be exponential equivalent to 75% per year. Regardless of the flexibility offered by these new spaces, the cost of a workstation is more than 40% lower than that of a traditional office. Moreover, it is much more economically attractive to use a coworking space than to be tied to a long-term commercial lease or a professional lease, which favors a reduction of the company's budget. In the fragility of the first years of start-up, this argument is far from being negligible.

Strategically positioned in dynamic business districts, or in the vicinity of high-traffic railway stations, coworking centers are designed to leave no room for constraint. Everything is greatly facilitated for regular workers as well as for occasional users temporarily passing through a city. Coworking has a bright future ahead of it. It is not a fashion effect since it has efficiently answered a new need that will last and that it will successfully negotiate the future turns that will be born from the permanent technological mutations. With economic sustainability assured, major international players have seized this market, not hesitating to transpose their model in France, like the American giant WeWork, the Anglo-Saxon Kwerk and the European Regus. The French companies Bouygues and Accor have joined forces to create Wojo, which relies on the powerful infrastructure of the hotel group and has ambitions to dominate the European coworking sector.

Differentiate yourself by offering services

Many other coworking companies are trying to survive the competition of these market behemoths by trying to stand out from the crowd with a more personalized offer or one that focuses on sustainable development. Rather than relying on ever larger and more impersonal spaces despite the presence of a wide range of services, these "small" coworking spaces emphasize the community dimension. This is the case of market pioneers such as La Ruche, Remixcoworking, or WoMa. These brands allow their members to benefit from a professional network at the national level, which is a good task facilitator. The more human dimension is privileged. The coworker does not find himself in a space as comfortable as it may be, but it is too indifferent. The PropTech players have understood the new challenges of real estate by creating value within the buildings themselves!

When you cross the threshold of these community coworking spaces, you are not just another customer, but you become a full member, part of the network of creative people and individual entrepreneurs who are already there. More than just sharing office space, it's a real state of mind that reigns on the premises, a unifying culture, as well as a mentality open to others, which is embodied by sharing and mutual aid. We don't come to these spaces just to do a specific job, we also come to dialogue, to discuss, to participate in extra-professional events and to work together on community projects. You also have the possibility to choose the domiciliation of your company within your coworking space. These coworking spaces are not comparable to the giants of the market, in that their service offer is different although the starting point is the same.

Corpoworking: coworking at the heart of the company

An evolution of coworking has recently taken place by integrating this concept into the corporate world. Known as corpoworking, this new evolution allows employees of the same company to meet in a different setting from their usual premises in order to create new reflexes, to change habits and to tint the work atmosphere with a touch of flexibility and creativity, conducive to the development of exchanges of ideas and a motivating team spirit.

Corpoworking has the positive effect of transforming relationships within the company on a double horizontal level between colleagues, but more importantly, on a vertical level between employees, managers and executives. The ice being thus easily broken, internal communication is strengthened to the benefit of the common economic good.