Coworking depends on being physically present, sharing ideas and direct communication. Which is exactly why the corona crisis brought the entire industry to a standstill. The Munich coworking and workshop space provider Smartvillage isn’t any better off. Co-founder and Managing Director Lukas Koppitz talks about how his company used lockdown to scrutinize their own business concept in our #CoronaUpdate.
Since 2012, Smartvillage has been providing coworking spaces in Munich. The company moved into their current office in Munich’s Westend in 2018 and put their focus on spaces for workshops in addition to coworking. The Munich-based company has also been running a second branch since last summer in the Finnish city Espoo near the capital city Helsinki. Everything was going well, further offices were planned. Then lockdown suddenly came in March and everything came to a halt. Lukas Koppitz describes how his team experienced that time period in our video interview:
“Our team was in a state of shock too. We used to have so many fantastic things to do, met with lots of people every day and suddenly we were all at home sitting in front of our laptops and had to completely restructure the way we work.”
Smartvillage: “We intensely worked on improving ourselves”
Yet the situation did have something positive to offer Smartvillage, said Managing Director and co-founder Koppitz. The team at both offices in Munich and Espoo suddenly had the time to talk in virtual meetings. Under the title “Smarter Village,” the company took a critical look at their processes:
“We reviewed our processes, our user journey, how do customers end up working with us, what do they experience here? We gave our employees further training and strengthened our relationship as a team. We intensely worked on improving ourselves, so that after this period in time, we don’t just come back and say: Here we are again, Smartvillage. But to also say: Hey, we’ve changed too.”
Watch the entire #CoronaUpdate with Lukas Kopitz of Smartvillage here:
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