How Coworking will Challenge Service Companies to Improve their Models

It’s one of those breezy days before summer and I am sitting on the balcony of Brad’s high rise apartment. He is editing an episode of DomeNation on his MacBook; I am writing blog ideas in a cheaply bound notebook. We are two people who wouldn’t meet in a traditional environment, sharing thoughts and creating ideas. I am not ready to leave the office.

However, working from your house is not always ideal because you lack interaction with your peers; as Alex succinctly states in “weekends lose a bit of luster when you work at home.“. Discussing my direction for this post between the three of us, I asked myself, how can coworking apply to traditional business, when Alex put me on the right track:

What’s important about coworking, and some of the things that it enables, is that there is a giant hole between indies/small shops and the large agency. This hole is perfectly filled by small to medium, agile teams, that can be formed within a coworking space. This idea of “consorgency”, or having a resource of talent in a “small pieces loosely joined” model; where based on the needs of a project, people can come together to quickly and efficiently execute.

According to an industry report on Computer Systems Design and Related Services in the US; otherwise known as IT Consulting, 65% of revenues are derived from the business sector. This is further broken down to the banking, finance, and insurance industries comprising 40% of revenues. These traditional businesses are employing outside consultants to build software solutions to fill industry specific and cross industry needs.

Fortunately for opportunistic entrepreneurs, IT Consulting has a low barrier to entry with approximately 84% of the companies operating as “micro entities”; or companies with fewer than 10 employees. This business model allows for an efficient company with low overhead, and infinite scalability for any project. What sets one company apart from another are three things; the ability to identify customers’ needs, pricing your services competitively, and quickly scaling your workforce to complete the project.

I have already encountered one company which uses a similar business model to fill a niche market in the banking industry. Beth Hamlin; one of the instructors from my credit training, is the Executive Vice President of Caliber Commercial Corporation, which provides credit analysis and training services to commercial lending institutions. This service fills a position banks need, while eliminating the expense of hiring and training internal personnel.

With a slice of creativity, the possibilities of partnering with coworkers are endless.

Technorati Tags: Banking, coworking, entrepreneur, Finance, service

Posted on May 17th, 2007 | By: bootstrap economist | Filed under Web Technologies

2 Responses to “How Coworking will Challenge Service Companies to Improve their Models”

1. Alex Hillman Says:
   May 17th, 2007 at 10:39 pm

   Interesting thoughts, I’d slightly modify your title to:
   How Coworking will Challenge Service Companies to improve their models

2. David Says:
   May 20th, 2007 at 11:51 pm

   Changed topic as per your recommendation. Thank you for the help.

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