Being in Vietnam from 2012, but until 2015, coworking space trend began to flourish, with the participation of local and foreign coworking space providers. According to CBRE report in 6/2017, the supply of coworking space increased by an average of 58% - on par with world’s growth.

The reason coworking space is favored is that this model provides the convenience of space with modern, interactive, high-connectivity equipment and techniques, or other conditions that an traditional office cannot meet.

It is estimated that the cost of using co-working space will help entrepreneurs saving up to 50% compared with traditional office. With traditional office space, in addition to monthly rent, the tenants should pay for not only office renovation, maintenance, electricity and water ..., but also investment in equipment, facilities at common area.

An in the coworking space, tenants pay one bill for seat only. This bill cover all other utilities such as shared facilities: reception, meeting room, high speed internet, printer and photocopy, coffee / canteen etc…

Talking to TheLEADER, Mr. Duong Do, founder of Toong - the Coworking space which runs 5 nationwide centers, said: "Value of a coworking space is a work environment that the coworking space developer creates".

According to Duong, the working environment is made up of many sensory and affective elements, which are intentionally connected to create their own culture. To do this, the coworking space needs a lot of things like finance, space, an eye-catching design and big space for everyone to work.

Being a coworking space development unit in Vietnam, the locations where Toong operate are exploited with high rates (over 80%). Toong’s customers are mainly freelancers and startups.

Duong Do said that, more than 50% of Toong's revenue of coworking space comes from the lease of shared space, then other functional spaces such as events, classrooms and meeting rooms, seminars...

In addition to that, Toong also developes and manages coworking space models for buildings; consults, manages new style of working environment for corporations. Another source of co-working space comes from the fact that the Toong actively selects and “brings shops in to coworking space”.

The founder called this action on purposeful development, in order to create a healthy and diverse work environment for customers. "Because I find myself more beneficial than annoyance," he said.

Duong Do accepted that, at the beginning time, many of Toong's clients are skeptical, as these services may scatter their jobs. But when it comes to experience, customers value it as a positive dispersion that helps them to balance work and life.

Of course, there are views that coworking space should be only a workplace. As the name suggests, co-working space is a "working space", not a mixed one.

"Co-working spaces in Vietnam are currently focusing on startup companies, events organizing, or doing sales in the common space… This leads customers to misunderstand about coworking space", explained Mr. Tran Xuan Kien.

CoGo is building centers with average floor area of ​​2,500sqm - 3,000sqm. It is different from other coworking spaces in Vietnam, which are common of ​​less than 800sqm in floor area.

Standard of a coworking space is that the area must be large enough to accommodate a diverse number of tenants and create a mutually supportive business community. In the world, an average area for a standard coworking space is about 5,000sqm (in the US) and about 3,000sqm (in China).

Mr. Kien adds the fact that, in WeWork (as known the largest coworking space in the world), more than 40% of revenue from the tenants who are companies operating stably and already passed through the start-up phase. More than 30% of revenues come from well-known large companies in the world.

With the learning experience from WeWork, CoGo centers are designed in modern and professional style. CoGo with simplified American style will give customers a more accurate view of coworking space.

He does not deny the turnover of events activities can be up to a hundred million dong a month, but it is not CoGo's focus. Although these activities benefit the owner, but surely will disturb customers in common space since it is the only area in which the events can be organized.

At CoGo Sun Ancora, the center will be operational in this December, the conference hall will be separate from the common workspace. This will help us to organize seminars, events and not affecting customers who working in common space as well as in private office.

"Coworking space investment is surely not profitable in the first one to two years. Huge fixed asset investment, the annual depreciation can cause business results nonprofitable. Besides of that, it take time to get customers familiar with new business model, realize benefits. Marketing expense to attract new customers is also huge”, said Tran Xuan Kien.

He also said that the working environment factor is very important. And that is why CoGo does not by all means speed up the rate of occupancy since it may harm the professional working environment.

Viet Hung

Source: theleader.vn

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