Case Studies Archives

Move to Hope Park & A* facilities
For the past 5 years the AFD sales team have been located at Hope Park Workspaces. The
excellent access to the motorway was key for the team who spent much of their time
travelling. Client meetings were either just 20 minutes from Leeds city centre or 45 minutes
to the centre of Manchester.
Jonathan says “With the Sales team travelling across the region, the location of Hope Park
was ideal for us. We also appreciated all the facilities which are A*, with the access to the
meeting rooms, sports hall, car charging and food court.”

Now the AFD team are on the move again but are keen to continue their strong and very
positive relationship with Hope Park. Jonathan explains how the Coronavirus pandemic has
meant changes for the team, something that for a business that trades in tech, wasn’t too
difficult to implement;
“We are a technology business, so it only took us a couple of hours to get an identical
working setup at home for everyone when lockdown meant we all had to work from home.
Adapting to remote meetings rather than face to face has been a shift in how we interact,
but one that has been received positively.”
Prior to the pandemic the office was mainly used by the sales team at AFD. The
‘work from home’ lockdown rules made AFD realise that for the couple of days a week that
they were using the office their work could be done remotely with minimal disruption.

Hope Park for weekly team meet ups

Despite their move to homeworking for the time being, the AFD team are planning to use
Hope Park as a satellite office for face-to-face working days, as its location, at the top of the M606
motorway is a perfect half point between the team members.
Jonathan is also keen to continue the AFD’s strong working relationship with Hope Park, and
ends by saying “If we decide to return to working in a shared office, which is a big
possibility, Hope Park will be the first, and only place we need to speak with.”

To find out more about AFD Software, visit their website: www.afd.co.uk

What is a satellite office?

First, let’s cover the basics, a satellite office is a business branch office, separate from the main business HQ. It is often a smaller office in a new location. This allows businesses to diversify the geographical regions they target and operate in smaller, more agile workspaces. These spaces are also known as virtual offices (Wikipedia)

What are the benefits of a satellite office?

There is a huge range of benefits to a business when running a remote office model:

Transportation – by running a set of smaller localised offices, employees can have a more accessible place of work to travel to. This allows members of your team to get to work quicker, easier and with less need for, and time spent on, commuting.
Flexible working – branch offices work well when partnered with the option to work from home. As a result, by giving employees a smaller hub they are free to use whenever they need, it can make the process of working from home easier and more efficient.
Hybrid working – different offices can accommodate smaller teams, helping staff to continue with either hybrid or remote working. This is a particularly important point post COVID, as both employees and businesses are looking for more flexibility.
Meeting and event space – office space gives businesses freedom and flexibility. Many employees are happy to work from home. Yet, there are certain times when face-to-face meetings, team working or team events are necessary. In these instances, serviced offices are a perfect solution. Moreover, they provide a base of operations for your team to work or a place to take meetings that are easily accessed whenever required – and let’s face it nobody needs another Zoom call.
Tech and hardware – for those of the team who need to print, copy or scan items beyond the ability of a desktop computer, an office location is an ideal place to carry out these specialist tasks.
A base for staff on the road – additional offices can provide a welcome base for sales reps and other members of the team who are normally on the road

How to set up a satellite office?

Setting up an office in a new location is fairly straightforward. However there are a few key things it is worth considering before you do:

Have you identified and confirmed the demand for this space? You don’t want to go through the process only to find not enough people are using it to make it worthwhile.
Decide on leasing vs. owning a space outright. If this is an additional office do you want to be tied down with owning the building and sorting out all of the services yourself?
Decide whether you would like furnished or unfurnished. Again, this is a question of whether you would like to source the furniture yourself or have it all provided. If you have resources within your team it may be easier for you to do this yourself.
Work out the best location for your new office:
- What geographic position is within reach for most of your staff?
- Do you need a city-centre location or one close to motorway links?
- What on-site facilities are important to the team? e.g. meeting rooms, cafe, parking
- What are the public transport links like?
- How fast and easy to access is the broadband connection?
- What are the social aspects of the area like? Is it easy for people to reach places to eat, drink and socialise after work?
Does the environment fit with the culture of the team? Is the proposed location a nice place to work and does it have the right combination of communal and private spaces for collaborative and deep work?

Why choose Hope Park to rent an office in Bradford?

Hope Park has a great range of serviced office options available. All our offices are fully furnished with all the necessary resources a business requires. Our office sizes range from 1-2, 3-4, 6-10 and 15-30 person offices. We also have perfect size meeting rooms to go with these offices from 1-3 up to 15-30 people.

With flexible spaces to suit a variety of different-sized businesses, our impressive reception and breakout areas will make great first impressions on your clients. Get in touch now and book a viewing for your business at our Rooley Lane or City Gateway, Bradford locations.

Can you tell me about Cloud2?

Cloud2 is a Bradford based company, we create industry solutions that solve real business problems.

As a leading Microsoft Gold partner in the UK, we look to create solutions that are unique to Cloud2 with intellectual property in 4 key areas: collaboration and compliance, process automation, intelligent insights and guided decision making.

As an example of intelligent insights, in healthcare we helped Rotherham Hospital significantly reducing waiting times for patient appointments by 65% within 6 months.

For companies, we help automate traditional processes and see how their business is performing in real time from any location.

Our expertise includes technologies such as Microsoft Teams, Power Apps, Flow, robotic process automation, Power BI, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

What challenges were you facing that made you decide to choose Hope Park Workspaces?

When we started Cloud2 11 years ago, the Microsoft technologies we worked with changed every 3-4 years, nowadays they change every month, and are almost entirely built in the cloud. So we wanted a working environment for our team that was modern and forward looking, with good internet infrastructure and the ability to adapt to our needs and to support the rapid pace of change and growth we’re seeing at Cloud2.

Location – love the fact it’s right off the M606 motorway, didn’t really realise how easy it would be for everyone in the company and visitors to get to and from.

How did you hear about Hope Park?

Word of mouth, from another company, Z1 Telecom that were already a tenant and kept saying how lovely it was here.

What has been your overall experience like with us?

It’s been great so far, we love the ethos of Hope Park. Since they are owned by a charity, it aligns well with Cloud2’s values, particularly the one where we look to contribute something back to the community.

We enjoy using the full size sports hall in the building where we play table tennis and badminton at lunchtimes. The support we get from the Hope Park admin and management team has been really good, they do request and take feedback on board and in the time we’ve been here we’ve seen an ongoing programme of investment. We do feel more of a partner than a tenant and so many of our visitors comment positively on the site. Finally, there is superb food from breakfasts to lunch and great coffee available onsite at The Sugar Snap Kitchen so we don’t go hungry or thirsty!

What’s next for your company?

Our team has grown by over 50% since we moved in just over a year ago. We have ambitious growth plans and are looking to continue to grow within the Hope Park facilities and to proactively support the Northern Powerhouse Partnership. We’re excited to be in the middle of delivering a number of groundbreaking projects and look forward to sharing these in a future update.

For more information about Cloud2, visit their website www.cloud2.co.uk

Can you tell me about Singularitee?

We are a fully outsourced IT department, working with small to medium size businesses to look after their IT. Our IT services focus on ensuring your infrastructure performs to its optimal capability. Our role is to make sure that your IT goes unnoticed; securing, monitoring, identifying trends, predicting failure and intervening at the appropriate time with automated remediation, changes, update and maintenance. We are all about delivering a great service to our clients and create partnerships with them that go beyond just IT.

What challenges were you facing that made you decide choose Hope Park Workspaces?

We had grown to the stage where an office was required to carry out our daily operation. Our team was growing and we also wanted to create a space where our clients could pop in and visit us. Hope Park ticked all the right boxes.

How did you hear about Hope Park?

We got to know Hope Park through a networking event that we attended. When we decided it was time to get our first office, the Hope Park team were happy to show us around the centre and explained everything that was included in a fixed monthly price.

What has been your overall experience like with us?

It has been great and we have made ourselves at home in the office. The staff at Hope Park are very friendly and helpful, nothing is too much trouble. We have got to know other tenants in the building too which is a bonus. Having free parking on site is a huge benefit for both our staff and visitors.

What’s next for your company?

We are looking to grow our client base and our team. We are keen to build our network in Bradford and support more local businesses.

Fore more information about Singularitee, visit their website www.singularitee.co.uk

Can you tell me about Raise Digital?

We are a software development company who specialise in the creation of mobile applications and web-based systems.

We use the latest technologies to provide bespoke digital solutions to real-world problems. This could be to automate and streamline processes, improve efficiency and aid communication.

Our speciality is integrating different systems together to allow processes to run smoothly. Sometimes the smallest interlinking solution is all that’s needed to unlock massive potential.

All our work is carried out in-house at Hope Park @ Rooley Lane.

What challenges were you facing that made you decide choose Hope Park Workspaces?

The company’s client-base has grown considerably in recent times meaning we needed some office space where we could grow. As we were already based on the edge of Bradford it made sense to find somewhere in the local vicinity. Hope Park has proven to be the perfect location as its close to the motorway allowing easy access to our clients who cover the whole West Yorkshire area.

How did you hear about Hope Park?

I was introduced to Hope Park through networking. However I was already aware of Hope Park’s existence having done some work with tenants of Hope Park @ City Gateway and even completed a project for TLG, the charity which they support in 2015. A few months after our meeting it became apparent we would need some serviced office space so I got back in touch to arrange a viewing.

What has been your overall experience like with us?

Hope Park is an excellent place to house and grow our business. Being able to take a fully furnished office for a simple monthly fee makes it so much easier. The facilities are excellent with so much included (tea, coffee, cleaning etc) and that makes a massive difference for a small business trying to grow. The community within Hope Park also helps greatly. All the tenants get on well so there’s always someone to chat to.

What’s next for your company?

We’re just in the process of growing our team to help provide a better service for our clients. Hopefully over the next 18 – 24 months we’ll be able to grow into a bigger space in the building.