MBA 3.

CO WORKING SPACES
ARSHAD ULLAH
MBA 3.5
3/17/2019
What are co-working spaces?
Co-working Spaces are autonomous or self-ruling, voluntary and flexible work style based on mutual
trust and there people working together and sharing common values b/w each other. It is a joint work
place, might be an office, and self ruling activities. Normally co-working spaces are attractive to the
people who work at home, independent scientist, people who end up working in isolation, and
independent contractor. Basically co working is a place where people get together working
autonomously, sharing values with mutual trust, and those people are concerned to create synergy and
this can be happen when people work alongside each other in same place and give value to their work.

It offers a lot of ways to solve the issues of isolation which many people i.e. free lancer face while
working at home. Some co-working spaces charge dues while some provides services free of cost. As we
know that co-working involved working together with common share value so we can say that these
places are not about physical places but about forming community. Now coming to the history of co
working we will give just a little bit glimpses to the history. Basically the word co working was first used
by Brad Neuberg in 2005 an entrepreneur having big dreams started the first co working space in San
Francisco. Actually this co working was only two days open in a week. Before that no one ever heard
about co working space that what is co working space but now a days these spaces are bulge in most
well known cities having an yearly rate of 24.2 percent. The prediction is that to the year 2022 the
number of co working spaces will be more then 30,432 and estimated co working member will be 5.2
million.

What is role of co-working spaces in promoting innovation and

entrepreneurship?
As we all know that entrepreneurship play a vital role in economy. We see that entrepreneurship has
great contribution to economic growth and create opportunities for employment. After studying a lot of
papers on entrepreneurship I observe that entrepreneurship not only need both productive and
supportive environment but it requires physical environment in which creativity and innovation can
flourish in effective way. A lot of tools are acknowledged such as business incubators which help these
entrepreneurs to establish networks and develop their businesses or firms. Other than public sector
models there are many private workspaces such as REGUS and OFFIECE SPACE IN TOWN support
successful business operation. These spaces provides good and flexible environment for entrepreneur
and businesses to flourish.

Now a day new spaces are formed which provides good atmosphere for the supporting of positive
aspects of entrepreneurship with the help of creating an active and flexible environment. These spaces
are THIRD COLLABORATIVE SPACES. Co working spaces are the category or an example of T C S. As I
mention above that co working spaces provide a flexible and friendly environment for free lancers,
entrepreneurs and other businesses which are from different sector with high technical skills,
knowledge intensive, and creativity. Generally co working are new generation work places ease joint
working system, mutual actions, and creating a good networking environment b/w their members. Co
working spaces play vital role in hailing entrepreneur ship and innovation and co working are expanded
throughout the world in recent years. Many trends have been detected behind the successful expansion
of co working but we will talk here some of few trends such financial crisis of 2008 and the emergence
of internet communication technology ( ICT ). During the financial crunch of 2008 most people left their
traditional work places and started their own professional life. ICT made it easier for people to do work
from home and share their ideas with each other. Entrepreneur mostly prefer these type of technology
and interact with each other through co working spaces b/c of feasible environment and cost effective.

Who started co working space in Pakistan?

The first co working came to in existence in 2005 in San Francisco and after that it expands to major
cities of Europe and other countries of the world. To 2008 there was no concept of co working space in
Pakistan but in that year Laghari initiate the first co working space by the name Suite 401 in Karachi.
After two years of spell the Laghari roll it. Why he wind it? Now coming toward the point according to
him that majority of people don’t know about co working space and they have no idea about it. Further
he added that when people joined my space they all were extremely suspicious about sharing ideas and
they were in fear that someone could hijack their ideas or plans. But few years later b/c of serious in
entrepreneurship and the start up from PASHA, PITB, and returning of overseas to initiate their own
setups. The efforts these change the mindset and facts realized on people that co working is a unique
idea and will save their cost i.e. utility bills and overhead cost as well as they will interact with
compatible people which will help them to implement with a new way of skills. We will give the example
of HQ which charges 15000 for 6 days 9 am to 8 pm work time and increase the attraction of many
people from different backgrounds which includes consultants, writers, small startups etc.

HQ was basically founded by successful entrepreneur Faizan Laghari in 2014. After 2008 he was
discouraged and he rolled out their first co working b/c of according to him that when some people got
their salaries other day there were disappeared. But in recent when people get aware of the concept of
co working Laghari come up with the idea of The head Quarters ( The HQ ) having 2000 square feet
area, capacity for twele people with providing standard facilities such as friendly communication,
backup power and Wi-Fi with efficient speed. According to Laghari that he has the intention to enlarge
their services to Lahore in 2016 but he also include that he has no intention to comprise incubation
centre in HQ.

What is the organizational structure of co working space?

Generally the organizational structure of co working space can be divided into 4 central areas which are:
Operations which is concerns to logistics, business concerns with the maintenance of space, events
related to technology system and the last one is community. It’s a general activities which space
manager carry but most of the co working spaces prefers the following structures:

1) Owner/Director
And under there are:
i. Floor manager: under floor manager there are IT+Accounts and HR and Social Handling
ii. House keeping
 iii. Marketing agency
iv. Influencers/Aggregators

Your organization will require a floor manager that will help the workers they need. As
in the structure there are IT + Account specialist which come under floor manager which
will you in technological infrastructure and invoicing + in billing respectively. Also the
floor manager has been capable enough to deal your social handles. In co working space
there has to be a person who take note problems or issues related to people. More
important for co working is marketing agency who takes lead for the company. The
agency also contribute to brand building and PR. Similarly cleaning and housekeeping
keep the place more feasible and provide a relax environment to employees. The
dealing activities are handling by the aggregators and influencers.

How many co working spaces are there in Pakistan?

There are more than 40 co working spaces in Pakistan which are in different cities say Peshawar, Islam
Abad, Karachi, Lahore and other cities. There list are given below:

1) Basecamp ( Peshawar )
2) IVY ( Islam Abad)
3) Office space.pk( Lahore )
4) Regus ( Karachi )
5) Dot zero ( Karachi )
6) Plan 9 tech hub ( Lahore )
7) Popcorn Studio ( Lahore )
8) Daftarkhwan ( Lahore )
9) Venture drive( Lahore )
10) Flock Lahore( Lahore )
11) Launch box( Lahore )
12) Techhub connect( Lahore )
13) Nust ceme( Islam Abad )
14) The Hive ( Karachi )
15) Co Wired( Lahore )
16) The HQ( Karachi )
17) Kickstart Café( Lahore )
18) The Bullpen( Karachi )
19) CoHut( Lahore )
20) Work place( Karachi )
21) Next Desk( Karachi )
22) Cosmo Resource( Karachi )
 23) WorkersHive( Lahore )
24) Co working hut
25) Work station co working Space
26) Ground zero
27) Forrun Office
28) Campus Co Working
29) Kick start
30) Kick start growth
31) Twin Hub ( Islam Abad )
32) We Create Center Pakistan
33) The Hive Islam Abad
34) Launch pad 7 ( Rawalpindi )
35) shareDesk ( Karachi )
36) SandBox Conference Area
37) SandBox
38) Co-Net Working space
39) Cowork24.pk Conference room( Rawalpindi )
40) Cowork24.pk
41) G47 co working Space( Lahore )
42) Gaditek( Karachi )
43) DIY Space ( Lahore )
44) Innovative co workers
45) Work stance

Significant projects done by co working space in Pakistan

BaseCamp Peshawar have done in effective project on education by the name Education Hackatho. In
this project majority people took part and convene in this project such as business students, faculty
members, Govt official, engineers and educationist etc. The purpose this project was to pay attention
and solve the problems related to education. Similarly BaseCamp had also done some of the hardware
projects.

TecHub done some of the project in the field of IT and they also arranged workshop for freelancers and
had done some projects for such people. The HQ of Laghari had done a lot of projects for venture and
new startups. Dot Zero have done many project in soft ware site.

Name of Directors with Contact detail

1) DOT ZERO
Directors: Mr.Farzal Dojki and Omer Ihtisham
Contact: +9234556352
2) BASECAMP
Director: Muhammad Uzair
Contact: +92915611942
3) The Hive
Director: Owais Zaidi
Contact: +92517080308