Why a workspace strategy is a business strategy: Creating competitive advantage
By Bruntwood SciTech
Workspace has become a critical part of growth infrastructure. The design of offices, the flexibility of lease models and the strength of digital infrastructure now directly influence how companies innovate, attract talent and scale. For high-growth firms in particular, workplace strategy is inseparable from business strategy.
A workspace strategy is the approach an organisation takes to design, scale and adapt its offices, labs and flexible spaces in line with business needs. Done well, it gives leaders confidence that their workspace will support growth rather than restrict it.
Growth rarely follows a straight line. Teams expand, projects accelerate and priorities shift. The best workspaces evolve with the business, supporting momentum rather than confining it.
Clear pathways across office products mean a company can begin in coworking, step into their first private office with a serviced or furnished suite as headcount builds, and move into leased space once the operating model is proven. Staying in the same campus or city-centre cluster preserves culture and networks while the footprint evolves.
Specialist needs follow the same principle. In science and research-focused businesses, for example, shared labs, private labs and grow-on options mirror the flexibility of offices so firms can scale in place without losing access to infrastructure or partners.
Workspace design that lifts productivity and culture
Attracting and retaining talent is essential to growth, and good office design can enhance the performance of a business through supporting employee wellbeing and productivity. Layout, light, air quality and acoustics shape whether a space supports focus or collaboration, and whether people want to spend time there.
The World Green Building Council finds “overwhelming evidence” that office design affects health, wellbeing and productivity, with measurable gains when environments are tuned for people (1). CBRE guidance echoes this, linking well-designed, tech-supported workplaces with stronger engagement and retention (2). Hybrid and flexible workspace options further broaden the talent pool, allowing access to skilled workers outside traditional geographic boundaries.
Case study: Avalere Health, Circle Square, Manchester
Avalere Health, a global healthcare communications company, wanted its Manchester office to reflect both the way its teams work now and how they would evolve in the future. Their objective was to create a space that would enable hybrid working, strengthen collaboration and help attract and retain talent in a competitive market.
Working together, their office at Circle Square was planned around working patterns. Dedicated collaboration zones were placed alongside quiet focus areas, supported by shared social spaces where people could connect informally. Employees now have a space that supports a range of working styles, from deep concentration to creative group sessions, and the company has an asset that reinforces its culture.
Read Avalere Health’s case study
Smart buildings enabling data-driven workspace strategy
Modern workplace strategies increasingly use real-time building analytics to fine-tune space utilisation and improve experience. Smart building technologies can lower operating costs and improve environmental performance when systems respond to occupancy and conditions.
Enterprise Wharf in Birmingham, the city’s first smart-enabled offices, is an example of this. Powered by the smart platform KODE Labs (3), the building benefits from a smart building management system and features such as smart metering, demand controlled ventilation, all electric heating and cooling, as well as photovoltaic panels. Its resilient connectivity coupled with sensor-led systems allows occupiers to see how space performs and adjust it quickly.
Flexible workspace products that enable rapid growth
Speed matters when entering a new region, building a client-facing team or setting up a project office. Flexible office products - coworking, serviced, furnished and managed - allow organisations to establish a presence quickly, test demand and scale up or down with limited risk. Global occupier research shows flexibility is now a top priority for corporate real estate leaders, reflecting a broader shift to portfolios that can adapt (4).
Recent launches reflect that demand. King’s House and Thread Works in Manchester city centre are furnished solutions designed to shorten the journey from keys to productivity. Whilst Centre City in Birmingham, new serviced offices respond to rising demand for plug-and-play solutions. Managed offices sit in the same stack, providing the convenience of a fully run workspace - with services, connectivity and operations as included options - without the commitments of a long conventional lease.
“Every company’s growth journey is different, but the need for flexibility is universal. Leaders don’t want to worry about whether their space will still fit in six months’ time. They want the confidence that it will adapt with them. The right workspace strategy means they can focus on growing their business, knowing the environment around them will support that growth at every stage.”
Jack Maher, Head of Flexible Workspace, Bruntwood SciTech
Reducing cost and risk with a workspace strategy
For many organisations, the challenge is less about growth potential and more about managing uncertainty. Flexible workspace models reduce the risk of being locked into commitments that no longer fit. By aligning space decisions with business cycles, companies can scale up or down as needed, keeping costs predictable while protecting momentum.
Efficient, sustainable buildings add another layer of resilience. They lower running costs immediately while offering stronger long-term value. Managed and furnished options go further by bundling fitout, services and operations, shifting upfront capital into predictable operating expenditure and shortening time to occupancy. When plans evolve quickly or when leaders want to preserve cash for core business priorities this can be a useful feature.
Future-facing adaptability in workspace strategy
Markets move quickly, technologies advance and working models change so workspaces must offer more than flexibility. They must be adaptable at a structural, operational and technological level.
In science and research environments, adaptability is already critical. JLL’s Future-Ready Labs framework (5) challenges occupiers to consider how easily they can reconfigure labs as research evolves, while Steelcase notes that rapid advances in data-driven science are placing new demands on lab and support spaces that traditional layouts often cannot meet (6).
Global forecasts suggest the pace of change will only accelerate. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 finds that 39% of workers’ core skills will change by 2030, underscoring the scale of transformation businesses must prepare for (7). Gartner meanwhile predicts that AI-driven digital assistants and new forms of virtual collaboration will be embedded in most enterprises by 2027, reshaping how people interact with both technology and workspace (8).
Adaptable workspace strategies future-proof businesses against disruption, ensuring they can embrace technologies and ways of working that don’t yet exist. The most future-ready workspaces are not optimised for a single way of working, but designed to evolve and integrate new tools, enabling new patterns of collaboration and scaling without friction.
Workspace as growth infrastructure
The most ambitious businesses treat workspace as growth infrastructure. The ability to flex across products, integrate new technologies and create environments where people and ideas thrive turns workspace into a driver of innovation and scale.
Sustainability and ecosystem connections add further value, but in fast-moving markets adaptability is what really sets companies apart. With business models, markets and technologies evolving faster than ever, only adaptable workspaces can give companies the confidence to keep growing.
At Bruntwood SciTech, we design flexibility and adaptability into every stage of the journey - from a first coworking desk or lab bench through to managed offices, grow-on space and long-term leases. Our customers expand within the same campuses and city clusters, so their workspace evolves with them while their culture and networks stay intact. For high-growth firms, that means time and capital can stay focused on what matters most: building teams, innovating and seizing new opportunities.
If you’re ready to make workspace part of your growth strategy, talk to us about how Bruntwood SciTech can help you scale with confidence.
References:
(1) https://worldgbc.org/article/new-report-links-office-design-with-staff-health-and-productivity/ (2) https://www.cbre.com/insights/articles/strategies-for-2025-and-beyond-designing-for-experience-agility-and-impact (3) https://kodelabs.com/ (4) https://www.jll.com/en-in/insights/market-outlook/top-global-cre-trends (5) https://www.jll.com/en-us/insights/future-ready-labs-10-questions-to-ask-about-your-life-sciences-space (6) https://www.steelcase.com/life-sciences-workplaces/ (7) https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2025/in-full/3-skills-outlook (8) https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-08-26-gartner-predicts-40-percent-of-enterprise-apps-will-feature-task-specific-ai-agents-by-2026-up-from-less-than-5-percent-in-2025
