Providing agile workspace solutions for IRI
IRI is a Chicago-based market research firm, focused on the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry.
They provide clients with consumer, shopper and retail market intelligence and analysis.
The firm operates in 58 countries and IRI's clients include 95% of the Fortune Global 100 CPG, retail and healthcare companies.
How IRI works with Regus.
To ensure it can quickly scale up or down in markets where its clients are located and most efficiently maximize their operating costs, IRI works with Regus (which is owned by IWG), on a global level to secure long- and short-term office space locations.
Chris Caponigri, Vice President of Global Real Estate and Facilities at IRI, said: “For us, turning to Regus was part of our business shifting toward being more agile. The Regus approach has enabled us to attract and retain talent as well as clients and provided us the opportunity to streamline our operations. Its fluid and flexible approach to the modern workforce and client needs fits our business strategy, allowing our staff to be productive and responsive and our business model to remain nimble and efficient.”
Workspace agility: a necessity.
IRI has been in business for 40 years, but in the last several years started seeing an evolution in the way its employees worked. The rise of technology enabled employees to be increasingly mobile. More and more, employees began working on-site at clients’ offices. A number of clients also wanted IRI to set up office space nearby for short-term contracts.
The search for a new workspace solution.
With employees scattered across the country, IRI realized it could scale back the size and number of its office locations, helping to save on operating costs. Additionally, it needed added flexibility for shorter-term leases. Some projects were only six months in length, while others only needed a conference room over the course of several days. These two major factors prompted IRI to search for new workspace solutions, eventually leading them to Regus.
Caponigri adds, “Regus has given us the ability to hyper focus on the things that are most important to our business – client service, employee retention and growing our company. We can contract where we need to contract, expand where we need to expand and set up a base wherever our clients are located for however long we need to be there. It’s my experience that no other flexible workspace provider has the scale and resources to meet all of these needs.”
Today, IRI leases eight Regus office locations throughout the United States and abroad and regularly accesses Regus' 60 million secure WiFi hotspots and more than 9,000 professional meeting spaces around the world.
Scale and flexibility in action.
A client based in a tertiary market requested that IRI find a local space for a year. It wanted the IRI team nearby, so they could immerse themselves into the company and better understand its needs. But finding a shorter-term office lease was next to impossible.
Landlords of traditional office spaces were unwilling to let IRI sign contracts for less than two years. Those that were willing to do the one-year lease put numerous, onerous conditions behind the agreement. Regus was the only office provider in this smaller market that had the ability to accommodate IRI’s needs.
Maximizing productivity.
IRI continued to tap Regus for more permanent needs, as well as more flexible requests. The relationship grew steadily, as Regus remained the sole, flexible workspace provider that could offer office space options and one-off conference room requests within dense urban areas, as well as smaller cities and suburban locations.
John Martinez, Global Director of Corporate Sales, IWG stated: “We’ve had a great relationship with IRI for years. They understand the power and benefits of flexible asset management. Their approach has given them agility to take advantage of a wide range of business opportunities while creating an experience for their employees that maximizes productivity no matter where they are.”