Reimagining the Office: Sky’s the Limit

During the past two years, the way we live, work and commute has shifted tremendously—and will never be the same.

As we continue to adapt to new changes and challenges, it's time to reimagine our working environments.

The office has broken its physical boundaries. As remote work has become an accepted option for many people and organisations, the traditional office-first model needs to be reinvented.

What if we rethink the office as a concept, and instead of seeing it as a physical space, we embrace the “service mindset” transforming so many industries?

In the office of the future, users can pay for what they want to use and value the most, with a continuous flow of new offerings and innovations to help them succeed.

In this space, facility managers and tenants both optimise the value of their space.

Tenants have a more flexible arrangement—they each use a desk, meeting room, printer, elevator, parking, in-house gym and more, and can be tracked on a single employee basis and charged based on use.

In this model, tenants can scale their office footprint up and down based on how their business develops over time.

At the same time, building managers have access to comprehensive asset utilisation visibility through a combination of real-time data, historical data and AI, helping them make better decisions about space usage, and allowing for the development of the service offering based on real insights.

It is important to embrace ecosystem thinking, where building owners, operators, tenants, tech companies, service companies and more, all come together to co-create these solutions.

Digital connectivity is a clear enabler to help manage office flow in faster, safer, smarter ways.

The KONE DX elevator promises a new era of digital people flow, and is a key player in this office-as-a-service ecosystem.

KONE has a growing ecosystem of API partners to facilitate a continuous flow of new offerings.

Blindsquare, the world’s leading guidance app for blind and visually impaired people, can be connected to the KONE DX for people to call a lift through their smartphone, helping them navigate smoothly and safely through spaces with confidence.

The visitor management system Sine enables instant check-in, pre-screening, capacity management and elevator calling to cater to all safety and security requirements and ensure your building makes the best first impression.

The ecosystem is growing all the time, bringing new smart-building solutions for everything from accessibility and parking, to entertainment and security, all of which can be easily integrated with KONE DX connected elevators.

Digital connectivity offers two main benefits for building owners and operators: the new vision of a smarter, more flexible commercial building maximises occupancy and ensures all spaces and assets are in demand, and that the building is no longer just a piece of real estate—the combination of physical space and digital innovation platforms now increase tenant satisfaction, opening new, more scalable and potentially higher value revenue opportunities beyond the typical office offering.

KONE DX offers connectivity to existing buildings, meaning you might not need to replace your elevators to take advantage of new digital solutions and services enabled by an API connected lift.

DX connectivity is available as an upgrade to all KONE elevators less than eight years old, meaning the benefits of a connected lift are possible without having to install new equipment.

KONE says the sky's the limit for the new services and solutions that can be created.

Click here to find out more about KONE smart elevator solutions.

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