ABCN Speaks with Jim Venables, Managing Director of Officebroker.com

"The perspective of the office searcher is now very much focused on finding the best solution for the money available, rather than finding the best solution for the business and then working out the financial bit," Jim said.

Brokers are an important part of the office business center industry. Managing Director of officebroker.com Jim Venables took time out to talk to us about his niche of the industry and his company. 

Can you give us a brief history of Officebroker.com? What is your history with the company?
officebroker.com was formed in 2001 in the UK, started trading in the US in 2006 and opened up its Asia-Pacific office in January 2009. I’m one of two founders, the other being Andy Haywood who now heads up the US operation. We started up the company and differentiated ourselves by adding value to each and every office search enquiry we received – not just firing out unqualified leads.  We’ve been fortunate enough to recruit and work with an exceptional team of people throughout the life of the organisation. It's this team that make us stand out from many businesses today. We have about 80 people now globally and intend to have a big celebration when we hit the 100 mark, a milestone we should reach in 2010.

What are your company’s mission and goal?
We are working to a revised 3 year plan up until the end of 2012. We review the plan monthly with the management team, it is very much focused on our core business and hitting the targets. Working this way helps the entire team to know that we are on track to be as successful as we think we can be. We are a fairly niche business in many ways so we push as hard as we can all of the time to understand what we can achieve along the way, rather than comparing ourselves to businesses who have already set the precedent (we are not so sure they exist). The goal is to enjoy it; you only get one life...

What can you tell us about your local markets and competition?
We operate in pretty much every local market in the world. This means somewhere in the region of 5000 serviced office buildings globally receive enquiries from us. They all differ and the goal for us is to learn the intricacies of each market, this comes from the knowledge of the people on the ground in each of the office providers who we work with globally, the skill is to transfer that through to our clients. Our goal is to engage with every client and be as educational and helpful as possible, if we do this we don’t have to consider the competition

How do you differentiate your business from that of competitors?
We are very much a sales-led organisation. This means we focus on finding the right solution for the business without getting bogged down in lots of technical issues or property related legalities and stress. We have always strived to talk in detail with every single person and organisation who decides to use us to help them find what they are looking for. We merely engage and help them along that journey to find them the right solution. Once we have found that solution we like to work quickly and get it closed down before moving on to the next search. Sometimes we get judged as being pushy - we just believe in making it happen once the decision by the client and the office provider has been made and at that point, yes, we are pushy - let’s get it done!

What trends have you noted in the industry and for your company since the recession began?
That’s easy, lots of budget-led enquiries, which is easy to understand in the current market. We have never really seen a drop in enquiry levels, in fact there are more global office searches year-on-year, however, the perspective of the office searcher is now very much focused on finding the best solution for the money available, rather than finding the best solution for the business and then working out the financial bit.

What is your company looking forward to in the future?
Staying focused on helping as many businesses find the perfect office solution as possible, even if they are budget-led for the time being...