Tech, Trends, Workspace Views and UltraSoft News
Industry update: What flexible workspace operators should know right now
1) IWG double-downs on its "hotel franchise" playbook
IWG’s latest H1 numbers show system revenue hitting $2.4B, but the real story is their 84% jump in management fee income ($35M). Franchised and managed locations now account for 45% of their total network (up from 14% in 2023). Instead of taking on heavy lease liabilities, they are letting property owners fund the build-outs while they manage the brand and operations.
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2) Premium city hubs bounce back while regional demand grows
London flex occupancy has climbed back to 83.8%, led by strong demand for private managed suites in the West End where revenues are running 26% higher than city averages. At the same time, enterprise teams are rolling out "hub-and-spoke" models, driving steady growth across secondary UK markets like Manchester and Birmingham.
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3) Enterprise tech steps back into San Francisco
Cutting through the ongoing noise about West Coast office vacancy, Mindspace just expanded its presence at Two Transamerica Plaza in San Francisco by 54,000 sq ft. Pushing their local footprint over 90,000 sq ft, it shows enterprise tech teams are still willing to pay top dollar for turnkey, flexible space rather than long-term leases.
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4) Executive shuffles highlight the push for global scale
As regional footprints grow, leadership structures are shifting to match. CBRE-backed Industrious brought on Melvin Vu as Managing Director for APAC, while Vast Coworking Group added a new CMO and CFO to aggressively expand their US franchise footprint.
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5) What is SBOM and why should workspace operators care
As operators connect more cloud tools to handle contracts, bookings, access control, and billing, corporate clients are starting to ask tougher questions about software security. In our latest article, we break down Software Bill of Materials (SBOM), what it means, why software supply chain transparency is becoming a corporate procurement requirement, and how it impacts your tech stack.
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What this means for operators:
As enterprise clients demand flexible terms and strict software compliance, running operations across separate spreadsheets or disconnected software tools gets messy fast. Unifying contract generation, billing, door access, and occupancy reporting into a single secure platform keeps your business lean and ready to win corporate deals.
See you in the next issue,
The UltraSoftBIS Team
