Europe’s largest independent and partner-managed agency group, the Serviceplan Group, bundles its expertise in the field of communication services under the umbrella of the House of Communication.
In Germany, the Serviceplan Group is represented by its Houses of Communication in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne as well as other offices in Bremen, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt and Nuremberg. Munich is the founding location and, with around 1,900 employees, by far the Group’s largest presence. In 2022, they moved to around 40,000 square meters of office space on the new iCampus in Friedenstrasse at Munich East station.
In the modern agency group, “New Work” is also a matter of course – the term “Activity-based Working” has become established in the House of Communication. Employees should work where they can do their job best. However, even in the old building, it quickly became clear that the approach of employees booking a workstation in advance is outdated in practice. The Serviceplan Group was therefore looking for a more intelligent solution. They found it with the “Workplace” software from CREM SOLUTIONS, which provides real-time insights into the actual occupancy of the space at the Munich agency location at all times.
Initial situation - activity-based working needs more than just a booking tool
Even though mobile working and working from home are part of everyday life for agency employees, the office as a physical location is still very important. In a communications agency, almost everything revolves around dialog – among each other, between the agency and clients or between the agency and external service providers. Many meetings are held online – but working at a desk, direct exchanges in meeting rooms, the option of making phone calls in phone boxes or concentrated work in “focus boxes” still play a decisive role.
The resulting challenges for the company are complex. And they go far beyond the question of whether the agency’s office space is being used efficiently and whether every employee can find a place to work without a long search.
“Whether an office functions as a workplace is ultimately defined by whether all employees benefit from being here to work,” says Martin Rau, Head of Facility Management at the Serviceplan Group in Munich. “What doesn’t work at all in this context is to draw conclusions about the required workplace equipment from a job description. Or who wants to or should use conference rooms, “focus boxes” or common areas such as our “Work Cafés” and when,” adds Rau.
It is important to know whether the rented office space is being used efficiently. However, it is not the only decisive factor – the focus is much more on providing optimum support for employees. After all, the agency professionals know that only those who feel comfortable can produce high-quality creative work. Even before moving into the new office building, it was clear that the solution needed for this aspect of facility management had to be intelligent and meet the complex requirements outlined above.
The solution - analyze sensor data intelligently
From an IT perspective, the Serviceplan Group’s goal was to create a digital twin of the office building. More than 1,400 sensors that detect the occupancy of rooms play a key role here. They are integrated into desks, doors or lamps, for example, and detect whether a room or workstation is in use or not.
Mechanisms can then be implemented on this basis, such as a pre-booked but unused conference room being released again after a defined period of time. “However, the challenges with such solutions lie in the details,” says facility management expert Martin Rau. “The usual rule for such if-then relationships is, for example, 15 minutes of non-use. But it can happen that the group in question gets caught up in a lively discussion in the coffee kitchen and then ends up showing up together in the conference room after 20 minutes.
This example already makes one thing clear: sensors provide raw data. The real challenge, however, is drawing the right conclusions from that data. This is precisely where “Workplace” by CREM SOLUTIONS comes into play.
“Of course, certain basic requirements have to be met first,” explains Martin Kelm, Head of Smart Building Solutions at CREM SOLUTIONS. The goal is to aggregate data from various sensors – “Workplace” is designed to be hardware-agnostic for exactly this purpose, meaning it can integrate sensor solutions from different manufacturers via standardized interfaces.
“But the solution only becomes intelligent in the next step, when it comes to analyzing and interpreting the sensor data,” says Martin Kelm. And in practice, there are plenty of pitfalls along the way. For example, the room occupancy sensor in a conference room may report that the room is occupied. “But does that mean it’s being used to capacity?” asks Martin Rau. After all, it could well be that a meeting room designed for eight people is only being used by one or two.
Raw data needs to be interpreted correctly
For this reason, the key figures represented in the “Workplace” dashboards are not standardized across all customers. The real challenge lies in the evaluation and interpretation of the raw data. A simple example illustrates how many factors need to be taken into account: basic average figures on space and building occupancy can easily be misleading. That’s because aggregated data needs to account not only for weekends, but also for public holidays that fall within the observation period.
In any case, deeper and truly meaningful insights require that employees be extensively involved as well. “Communication is the key word here too,” says the site manager of Facility Management at the Serviceplan Group in Munich. “All employees, for example, need to know that the installed sensors only detect occupancy — never individual people.” Whether a specific person is present in the office on a given day is not something the system can detect. Its purpose is to identify usage and occupancy of the building as a whole. This can also be visualized using so-called heatmaps on visually appealing “2.5D” building plans.
Such heatmaps can sometimes reveal surprising insights. “For example, we discovered that one of the common areas was barely being used by employees,” recalls Martin Rau. A staff survey then revealed that this part of the building was too dark and had poor acoustics. “This could be fixed structurally – and now this otherwise empty space can once again fulfill its intended purpose.”
That’s why the Serviceplan Group and CREM SOLUTIONS remain in constant exchange even after the implementation phase of the solution. “Anyone working with the data provided by the dashboard needs proper training,” explains CREM SOLUTIONS expert Martin Kelm. “Not in how to use the software – that’s super simple. But in how to draw the right conclusions from the data.”
If it turns out that more complex questions need to be answered, this might also mean deploying different types of sensors – for example, to not only detect whether a room or area is occupied, but to gain reliable insights into actual usage levels.
Ultimately, it’s also about making the data and the insights derived from it accessible to all employees. Based on this data, additional tools can be developed over time to offer better visibility into where desks or focus boxes are currently free.
Conclusion
“If needed, we can quickly identify necessary improvements and respond accordingly, for example by creating more workstations or alternative workspaces,” says Martin Rau from the Serviceplan Group. “That’s why the use of ‘Workplace’ clearly also has a strategic dimension. Smart use of available space allows us to absorb future growth within the existing building.”
Additional benefits include classic advantages such as reduced energy consumption for lighting and heating, as well as needs-based deployment of cleaning staff. At the same time, the solution serves as an early warning system, indicating whether space is being freed up or additional space is required. This, in turn, contributes to the ongoing development of the agency group’s office concept.
Following the extremely positive experience the Serviceplan Group has had with the “Workplace”-based solution at its Munich location, the next step is to initiate implementations at the group’s other sites. Insights gained from the solution can also be applied there. “This even extends to choosing office furniture, as the data analysis shows us what resonates with employees – and what doesn’t,” Rau explains. “We save a lot of time and at the same time get more valid results when it comes to identifying needs – or simply verifying whether everything is working the way we envisioned.”
“With around 40,000 square meters of office space and approximately 1,900 employees, the Serviceplan Group is one of the major clients using this solution. Through close collaboration, we ensure that the Serviceplan Group can gain every insight the company is looking for. At the same time, this close cooperation helps us to continue developing ‘Workplace,’ making it more powerful and better aligned with the needs of all our clients,” concludes Martin Kelm from CREM SOLUTIONS.
