The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
By Alvin I. Dacanay
If you own a small enterprise or just formed a non-profit group, you must have thought about where its office should be. But this begs the question: Does your business or organization have enough resources, human and otherwise, to fully operate and maintain it in your favored location?
A house, either yours or a colleague’s? It may initially save on costs, but it’s obviously far from ideal and is almost sure to cause problems later on. Renting a piece of property, a floor, or even a room in any of Metro Manila’s major business districts? That may be convenient, but it could prove difficult to afford and maintain in the long run.
What other options are left for you, then?
Fortunately, the last few years saw the emergence of another, better option: co-working spaces. As its name suggests, these spaces allow not only employees of startups, non-profit groups and small companies, but also freelancers, to share a well-equipped and productivity-fostering environment where they can quietly grow their respective organizations. Some of these spaces’ providers offer them employee and management solutions.
One co-working space provider is Penbrothers, established in December 2014 by business partners Nicolas Bivero and Gui Faria and managed by Gabrielle Pratte. It envisions to “reverse the brain drain” plaguing the business sector “by creating the infrastructure needed [to] allow Filipinos to work for foreign and local startups and small and medium enterprises [SMEs] they would otherwise not be able to work for.”
Penbrothers said it was born out of “a need to meet a new demand and opportunity generated in the startup community—mainly the co-working sector—with an innovative approach to co-working, offering additional business solutions beyond a shared space.”
Since its establishment, the company has served more than “30 international and local startups, organizations, and entrepreneurs,” who “use the space to grow, scale, and engage collectively.”
Currently, Penbrothers offers three furnished co-working spaces—two in a building in Legaspi Village and one in Salcedo Village, both in Makati City—with amenities that include high-speed internet, free-flowing coffee and water, meeting-room reservations, and an event space; human-resource support, particularly in preparing and filing the documents needed to run an organization, as well as in administrative tasks, which frees its clients to focus on their business; and the recruitment of people and teams.
How big are these spaces, you might ask? Penbrothers Operations Manager Eshna Esu said in an interview that one space in Legaspi—which has both open and closed areas—can accommodate a maximum of 250 people and the other, 40; and the third, in Salcedo, between 45 and 55.
“We are open for seven a days, 365 days a year. We have proper security measures—CCTV [closed-circuit television] cameras, biometrics, security persons. We have ourselves covered as far as security is concerned. And we are open any time of the year, all the time,” he added.
Team-up
Helping Penbrothers help their clients in making their business flourish is Microsoft, which recently teamed up with the co-working space company to provide top-notch cloud-technology applications that are installed in the Dell laptops and devices in the firm’s shared-office spaces.
In a statement released during the recent launch of its partnership with Penbrothers, Microsoft said its collaboration with Penbrothers “aims to enable employees with the right technology, support, and work environment that empowers them to be more productive and efficient and, thus, preparing them for a new world of work.”
It also said it dreams to “reach out to everyone, to have inclusivity that can open experiences to a wider range of people and businesses.”
“Not only is Microsoft for big [and] established enterprises, it also [promotes] the growth of [startups], entrepreneurs, and freelancers by offering them tools and technology that can help in opening opportunities and expanding horizons,” it added.
The technology referred here is Office 365’s improved cloud technology, with which, the computer-software giant said, “files, documents, and data can be created, edited, and shared through any device—be it a PC [personal computer], Mac, iOS device, Android, or Windows—with anyone in real time.”
“This helps businesses connect better with customers and co-workers with a wider range of communication tools,” it added.
Microsoft assures users that space is no problem, for they each have 1 terabyte of space to which they can save files. And because these files are stored online, these can be shared with anyone they chose, no matter when or where.
As for tools, one that Microsoft offers to Penbrothers clients is Windows 10 Pro for Business, which it described as “an upgrade from the Windows 10 Home that enables businesses to do great things from anywhere, has the built-in security and flexibility to keep up with business growth.”
“It is safer and more secure, with enhanced encryption that protect companies from modern security threats. Windows 10 Pro Business gives agile, cost-effective features that helps companies better manage and protect systems and data,” it added.
With these solutions installed in Dell’s latest line of devices, Penbrothers clients can now acquire new capabilities that will not only allow them do their work faster, but also reinvent how things are done and communicated. This is sure to help employees with their need to smoothly connect, interact and share with one another, and isn’t that what effective co-working shows?
Penbrothers co-working spaces are on the fifth and sixth floors, OPL Building, 100 Carlos Palanca St., Legaspi Village; and 11C, Chatham House, 116 Valero St., Salcedo Village. Both are in Makati City. For more information, contact Gabrielle Pratte at 0917-8303606 or send an e-mail to gab@penbrothers.com.
For more details about Microsoft and its Windows 10 Pro for Business, Office 365, and Cloud offerings, visit www.microsoft.com/en-ph.