Why Flexible Workspace Will Only Win Through Collaboration
The future of flex isn’t about who controls the data, but who shares it
From Protection to Participation
The Flexible Workspace Market Isn’t a Zero-Sum Game
When I first came into flexible workspace, the instinct across the market was to protect, not to share.
Operators kept their data close, brokers guarded their leads, and landlords worried about giving too much away. The belief was that if someone else gained, you’d lose something.
But that’s not how markets grow.
And it’s certainly not how this one will.
Why Shared Data Builds Stronger Markets
The truth is, the flexible workspace sector will only reach its potential when we start behaving like participants in an open system.
Data gives markets confidence.
It builds trust, reduces risk, and attracts capital.
We’ve seen this across multiple sectors.
Commercial real estate has shared data for decades through CoStar, MSCI, and Radius.
The travel industry does it too—airlines and hotels sharing pricing, booking, and occupancy data through global systems.
These are not charitable acts; they are strategic ones.
The collective infrastructure makes every player stronger because the market itself becomes more predictable, investable, and scalable.
Lessons from Other Industries
Even in the most fiercely competitive industries—tech, finance, now AI—data sharing is the foundation.
In an AI-enabled world, scale is everything.
The more data points you can access, the smarter your insights, the faster your innovation.
No single operator, however well-run, can achieve that in isolation.
Building a Shared Foundation for Flex
That’s the philosophy behind the Workspace Intelligence Network (WIN).
It’s a platform designed to help operators, landlords, and investors contribute anonymised, secure data that benefits everyone. By doing so, we’re not creating an advantage for one group; the goal is to raise the floor for the entire sector.
Without shared data, flexible workspace risks being misunderstood and undervalued. With it, we gain credibility, accuracy, and confidence from investors, partners, and customers alike.
Playing the Long Game
The next phase of growth for flex isn’t about who wins the most contracts or opens the most locations—it’s about how we make the entire category stronger.
Shared intelligence can help us define real benchmarks, quantify performance, and prove the resilience of this model through cycles.
The more transparent we become, the more investable our industry becomes.
Collaboration doesn’t dilute competitive advantage; it compounds it.
And if we want to see flexible workspace truly recognised as a core part of commercial real estate, we’ll need to stop playing a zero-sum game and start playing for the long-term strength of the market.
When the market shares its data, it shares its power…
And that’s how flex grows up.