Workinton Qatar manager Kerem Mergen has convened with Fabienne Hajjar ( General Manager of Servcorp), and Mark Proudley ( Consultancy and Commercial Agency Manager at Cushman & Wakefield Qatar) in a moderated conversation run by Adam Stewart, Partner Head of Valuation and Advisory at Cushman & Wakefield- Middle East to discuss the shining potential future of coworking beyond simply being office space providers.
To Mergen, the Coronavirus pandemic represented a lot of “unforeseeable events” for Workinton and from a “helicopter view”, there were a lot of “ups and downs” yet the pandemic period still yielded an abundance of promising growth, especially from the March 2020 to March 2021; big companies at the time were exploring many downsizing options regardless, alongside having more satellite offices and more flexibility in their corporate structure.
A new product Workinton Qatar has been devising since before the pandemic was a business accelerator called Workinton Enterprise, specially designed for companies that are slightly larger than SME’s and startups but aren’t quite major corporations just yet. Workinton Enterprise aims to “design, build, and manage” projects and provide innovative, customized solutions for said companies. Workinton Enterprise also comes with many unputdownable financial perks, such as the nonexistence of interest fees, a flexible payment per month system, and where the client company owns all the assets without any hidden costs or the need for any invoices.
Mergen also admitted that competition is healthy for the market “as long as the pie is getting bigger”, but Mergen believes in the pressing need for more sustainable solutions and more sustainable companies to keep the market running in the healthy fashion. While “demand may be incrementable until the World Cup”, the sustainability of the market depends on new startups joining the playing field most of all, and he also emphasized on the importance of SME’s actively engaging with major league corporations to uplift themselves as SME’s have been struggling greatly throughout the pandemic period.
Lastly, landlords were also discussed and all panelists have honestly agreed that negotiations between landlords and service providers are a walk along a fine line, with rent being one of the most pressing subjects of the debate. Mergen wittingly suggested that the best relationship between landlords and service providers is if they were soft partners, where capital expenditures and revenue are shared. He also cites the long prosperous partnership between Alfardan Properties and Workinton Qatar as an example of this success, as Alfardan Properties has had Workinton’s back since the very beginning. Moreover, many metrics such as Rework track growth up to 80% in required capital, Mergen cites, thus solidifying the
