When I launched Hiptown with Matthieu and Xavier, I had an idea in mind.
It’s an idea that’s been with me for a long time, and which began to take shape during my Stonup years, when we analyzed all the elements that could make a building obsolete in the future (Strategic Foresight Method), i.e. no longer fit for use by its residents.
Use is at the heart of an office building’s functionality, and these uses are evolving and currently undergoing radical change. We’re even talking about “new professional time-spaces” (managerial cultures, quest for meaning, work rhythms, telecommuting practices, workspaces). All this is leading to new paradigms that are accelerating the transformation of buildings and their associated services.
To meet these new needs, we propose to develop the concept of a platform building. In other words, an open building that allows new services to be integrated in Plug & Play mode.
In fact, I think it’s precisely with buildings that integrate and open up to their environment that we’ll be able to innovate in real estate.
Stakeholders who don’t communicate
Let’s put things in order. A building brings together several players: an owner, a manager, a tenant and service providers. Until now, each came with its own facility management, management and communication tools, enabling them to reserve meeting rooms, find out the menu for the company restaurant, call in an external company for any electrical problems, reserve a parking space, etc. I won’t bore you with the number of tools surfing the wave of the new technology. I won’t bore you with the number of tools surfing the Smartbuilding wave…
But with the digital transformation of our society, more and more buildings are connected, and landlords now want to have access to all this data, especially usage data on the user side (to – for example – predict tenant movements in growth or decline, and thus offer them a new asset in their portfolio).
Better still, they want to be more involved in day-to-day building management. Yet many large companies continue to come up with their own applications, and the various stakeholders don’t talk to each other. Here, we’re just scratching the surface of the landlord/tenant relationship… I’ll leave you to imagine the complexity of opening up the building’s eco-system with its external environment. At best, this is limited to available parking spaces or free workstations on brokerage platforms.
Innovating usage through access to services
Hence the need for a platform that brings all the players together: a marketplace that is both digital and physical, simple, sufficiently developed and agile to link any application, service and user to the platform.
As you will see, the advantages are numerous:
For the user: the marketplace enables users to access information and interact with their environment. For example, if a user is looking for a place in a flexoffice or a meeting room, or even a place in the company crèche, they can find an answer straight away simply by consulting the platform. But users can also order directly and pay via their smartphone for a service offered in the building (a meal, a concierge service, a wellness session, etc.). In the event of a leak, a tenant can send a photo instantly, and the service provider is directly informed, and can even start a diagnosis. The service provider can even start a diagnosis. And of course, this reduces costs (rental charges, among others).
But you could also get residents to take part in various internal building referendums on the next theme for the back-to-school party, the color of the lighting in the entrance hall, and so on.
But also share with your users – and not just PMs and owners – energy performance, the number of plastic bottles recycled, the number of cups saved, and so on.
In general, information is made fluid and transparent.
The more you involve the end-user in the life of the building, the stronger the sense of belonging to it and its community. The building is the only common vector for all people’s activities, and the memories forged there reinforce this identity.
For the owner: better control over data. For example, he can refer to usage and socialization indices to anticipate vacancies, which is what he fears most. But he can also get direct feedback on the success or otherwise of the services offered, and thus update the offer in near-real time.
What’s more, when you consider all the advantages in terms of uses and services that the marketplace brings to the user, it becomes an incomparable selling point for the owner, who clearly finds tenants more easily thanks to this type of service. Not to mention the fact that a marketplace can be set up quickly and agilely, and can respond to the needs expressed by residents.
For service providers: They can easily offer their services and products in the service catalog, communicate with users, and all without any technical operational set-up, since the tools are made available to the building and included in the fee or rent.
More than just office buildings
With Hiptown, we decided from the outset to develop a marketplace based on web standards and keeping in mind several principles that are dear to me:
- Agility
- Connectivity
- Frugality
To achieve this, we selected the best tools on the market (billing, reservation, access control, catalog, dashboard, cash register, payment, online signature) and connected them to each other via APIs.
The ecosystem we offer to owners and users is one of the few platforms today capable of integrating a galaxy of tools that open up a whole new world of possibilities in real estate.
Because the notion of a platform means opening up to the outside world. Our observation is that we don’t just work and produce in the workplace, we also carry out more and more activities that are part of everyday life. For example, it’s much simpler to have a parcel delivered or an electric car recharged, right in the workplace. This is exactly the kind of service that transforms the workplace, integrating it into a wider, local environment. In fact, these services can radiate out into an entire neighborhood. A gym, a business center or a foodcourt, for example, can be used not only by the company building offering it, but also by other external users in the vicinity.
In fact, the usefulness of a building is first and foremost a question of services and openness. It’s a social definition of the building platform, rather than a technical one. And it’s precisely in this way that we’re innovating, by putting the building at the service of use. Let’s not forget, by the way, that office real estate is a long-term business, so you need to be agile, to be able to anticipate, and that’s what the platform building allows you to do, integrating a new tool without wasting time and adapting to changing needs.
Would you like to join us?
On our Hiptown website!
And, of course, on social networks too:
I invite you to read – among others – Transfo digitale: l’avènement des plateformes, by Gilles Babinet.
