Enrico Sanna
Fora
PropTech is undeniably facilitating transformation across the entire real estate spectrum, but nowhere is the change more evident than in the office sector. A shift in workplace culture and owner attitude, coupled with the use of tech to enhance operations, has resulted in the evolution of the office market into a services-led business, and has also fuelled the rise of flexible workspace providers catering to diverse business needs. In this third instalment of the #CEOTalks series, I sat down with Enrico Sanna, co-founder and CEO of premium flexible workspace provider Fora, to discuss the importance of PropTech for the sector.
With a background in the corporate world, Sanna previously held senior roles at Deutsche Bank, most notably in its hospitality portfolio. During his time at DB, he served as Chairman of the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas, transforming the performance of the business through a committed focus on customer experience and hospitality. He started Fora three years ago with co-founder Katrina Larkin, backed by a substantial investment by Brockton Capital. Fora now owns the freehold on the majority of its 750k sq ft portfolio in London and claims to run at 90% occupancy in its established buildings. The company claims a unique selling proposition hinging around hospitality, with 24/7 service in all locations and team members trained at the Ecole Hotelliere de Lausanne; a strong tech spec centred on the Fora app and enterprise-grade infrastructure; and considered design to maximise productivity and enhance creativity. Their efforts were rewarded when, in April of this year, BCO honoured Fora with the Innovation award for its commitment to wellbeing, innovation, mindful design and customer service.
Fora Princelet St
JONATHAN BUSHELL
The relevance of PropTech
According to Sanna, technology is now central to the way buildings are designed and operated. The positive impact of tech can be felt through the supply chain, and it supports the increased focus on sustainability in construction. Waste can be reduced and reusability engineered into products, with the spaces created making use of materials and infrastructure that reduce their negative impact on the environment and on the people that occupy these spaces.
The uptake of flexible workspace is booming in London, and in many other cities around the world. Given how these spaces are used by individuals and businesses, technology is an increasingly important tool in ensuring that these environments serve their occupants as effectively as possible. Sanna told me that at Fora, tech helps to determine where changes can be made to improve the resident experience, such as by identifying that more breakout space is needed. They have also invested in intelligent sensors that trigger an action in an environment, for example adjusting ventilation systems so that the right amount of fresh air is pumped into a room according to its occupancy.
The game changers
As well as housing several PropTech startups across various Fora locations, Sanna sits on the board of PropTech startup fund Concrete VC. From this dual vantage point, he has visibility of a broad slice of the market. It is clear to him that the availability and accessibility of data, which is currently quite patchy, is key to the development of the sector. This is something I fully agree with as well, and have discussed at length in this column. According to Sanna, “Solutions that allow us to effectively combine qualitative and quantitative data from all sources – the physical buildings, the systems that power them, and the people that occupy them – will bring about the most meaningful and impactful changes in the sector.”
With regards to the flexible workspace subsector, Sanna believes adaptive workspaces such as those in Google’s King’s Cross building to be a game changer. The office at 6 Pancras Square incorporates over 90 adaptive meeting rooms known as “Jacks”. These can be reassembled in a matter of minutes by the inhouse team to create meeting rooms of any size, fully enclosed or partially open, catering to the varying needs of the group, without affecting the acoustic integrity of the space, a fundamental requirement for a meeting room.
More hype than they’re worth
I asked Sanna to share what hyped up tech he thinks will not deliver on expectations for it. He would not put much faith into online offices, which he describes as “part coworking, part chat room and part video conference”. Though they might be useful for virtual teams, according to Sanna these could never eclipse the importance of a physical workspace.
Fundamentally, people want to feel part of a community. Strong relationships are especially important for modern, agile businesses where collaboration across projects is key. We are social creatures and 98% of communication is non-verbal, so I can’t see how we could produce our best work under these ‘virtual’ conditions.
A ten-year outlook
As is customary in this series, I asked Sanna what he is excited about for the sector’s future. Over the next ten years, tech will become ever more inextricably intertwined with workspaces and the ways that buildings are conceived, designed, operated and occupied. As we have seen in a previous article, research shows that the flexible sector is booming, and its share of the overall office market can only continue to grow.
Increased pressures on space, infastructure, and the growing demand for flexibility coming from workforces themselves will all contribute to this shift. Perhaps most importantly, spaces themselves will need to be increasingly adaptive, and data exchanged in real time between the physical space and the people using that space will shape the nature of that adaptation.
The future is looking bright for the flexible workspace segment, and PropTech will be the fuel that powers it growth.