Colony, a high-end co-working space, has introduced "Jerry," a cutting-edge remote office renting model that focuses on automation and affordability to address the dilemma of rising business costs brought on by inflation.
According to Timothy Tiah, co-founder of Jerry and Colony, the prospect of growing inflation is one of the biggest threats facing businesses this year.
The Department of Statistics Malaysia recently reported that inflation for the third quarter of 2022 increased by 4.5 per cent as compared to the same quarter of the previous year, while the Ministry of Finance forecasts it to be between 2.8 per cent and 3.3 per cent in 2023.
"We have seen how monthly costs, particularly in office leasing and hiring, have taken a toll on many businesses in the past few years. Hence, our objective with Jerry is to empower businesses by driving down office occupancy costs, so that they can be agile and stay afloat in the ever-changing work landscape by offering more affordable and flexible options.
"Today, office spaces need to be more flexible to match the size of businesses, whether they are scaling up or down. Co-working becomes the solution for that as it is super flexible for employers to pick and choose spaces depending on what is needed at a particular point in time," he said.
The overall occupancy rate of purpose-built office space in Kuala Lumpur city centre improved to 67.2 per cent in the first half of 2022 from 66.8 per cent in the same period the previous year, according to Knight Frank's Real Estate Highlights 1H2022.
One of the reasons given is that more businesses are showing renewed interest in co-working spaces since they offer the flexibility and cost-effectiveness to expand their operations while providing employees with a better work-life balance.
According to Tiah, Jerry can reduce office space costs for companies by up to 70 per cent.
He claimed that office automation works to reduce the number of people while saving time and resources as business costs continue to climb across the majority of industries.
"Moreover, Jerry believes that the combined impact of inflation and fixed costs of traditional office rentals can significantly take a toll on businesses, and sees automation in a co-working space being key for employers to regain financial control with lower office occupancy costs.
"By taking this bold step in automating the entire process, Jerry naturally cuts down fixed costs that traditional offices would spend on, for instance, a sales team or help desk. Instead, we have ensured that every aspect of office management can be resolved remotely," he said.
To cut back on exorbitant business costs, Jerry also embraced the idea of constructing these co-working offices in underutilised real estate spaces in desirable Klang Valley neighbourhoods.
Tiah said the co-working office can provide workstations at a substantially reduced leasing price with ease of access by deciding on underutilised places.
"We chose strategic hotspots for Jerry offices as we wanted to give business owners greater accessibility to other locations that they would frequent in their day-to-day schedules, such as potential client offices, business partners, customers, and vendors," he said.