Niki Fuchs, OSIT's Powerhouse: 
"Flex is in my DNA"

Flex and The City had the true pleasure of catching up with OSIT’s CEO and Flex OG, Niki Fuchs, who delves into her flex career as the second generation, following her parents’ legacy. Niki shares her insights on today's ever-evolving flex market, the unique flavours defining OSIT’s ethos and the secret sauce behind their success. 

Serviced offices must run in your DNA, with your mother opening one of the first UK serviced office buildings 1979. How was the transition from a home to work dynamic?

Definitely. It's in my genetics. My mum actually had a kiss from Joey Essex for being an OG of the industry! Nepotism was the hardest environmental learning. My mother and father worked together. My father was a longtime businessman and he had very high standards, whereas my mom is really affectionate. So it was quite tough. I started as a receptionist, and I only got to move up the ranks if I was the best.

And now as the CEO of OSIT, owning the company with your brother Giles, how is that?

I've been CEO for just over 18 months and we have an amazing senior management team in Simon Eastlake (MD), Georgia Sandom, (who is Operations and ESG director) and Sarah Singlehurst, Sales and Marketing Director, she is also our co-founder. They are incredible and they didn't need me to be CEO, as such. I am there really to keep a hand on the tiller, because everything I have is in their hands, and they take that responsibility really seriously. So, I'm there as a bit of a guide, and a mentor. I'm also a friend, I've known them all for over 20 years. So I don't do the traditional 'CEO' role, we leave that with them to drive the business.

Will your son, Kenzie, be taking over OSIT one day?

Before I got my opportunity, I had been out and about, got my own job and cut my teeth, so I earned that first role. We'll of course help Kenzie on his journey in any way we can, but when he comes out of university, he's got to find his own way.

OSIT is well known for one of the lowest staff turnovers in our industry. What is your secret? 

I wouldn't call it a secret. I think, isn't it enough to be caring and considerate in everything you say and do? Every time you ask someone something, just make sure that you've put yourself in their shoes. So if you don't get the response that you expect or wanted, take a moment and think ‘OK, something's not right, let's find out what is wrong’. So I think there's no magic potion, I think it's just always being the best version of yourself, and instilling that in everyone else so that they are caring and considerate to everyone too.

OSIT is extremely cool & unique in the way that each building has a different theme. We’re dying to know how did you come up with each theme?

Nothing to do with me at all! So, we used to use a fit out company called Peldon Rose and they did a brilliant job on all of our buildings. When they started with us, they had a designer working for them called Sam who is incredibly talented, and she has actually started working for some of the other operators. These were all her ideas. They came about by examining the building’s location, and the vibe she got when she walked into previous occupiers. Then she would get dressed up in costume to match the theme and present them to Simon who was so impressed, he married her! They fell in love at the Waterloo opening.

It is amazing that you are one of the only operators that own their buildings. What would you say are the main benefits of this?

Yes, this made a big difference in COVID. COVID was a s*** storm for everybody- landlords, tenants, occupiers - and we suffered just as much as anyone else. There are very few operators who don't have some sort of finance in place, and when you are beholden to a landlord to pay rent, the landlord will put themselves first. But COVID was a very special situation as most operators were able to negotiate deals, and I think looking back, it's wonderful to see that we didn’t lose any more operators than we did. And that says a lot about the landlord-tenant relationships that operators have. 

For us, our breakeven occupancy levels are a lot lower than many of our competitors. So, because we do own our buildings, we gave a lot of discounts before the clients asked for it. We thought, ‘let's just spend the money’, which was over 2 million pounds in discounts. Because it meant that when everyone came back to work, our occupancy levels were way above a lot of our competitors as we managed to retain our clients.

We know you have several locations in London and a few regional. Have you got any expansion plans? 

Northampton is where we started, plus we have Cardiff. We've sold one of the buildings and we are in the process of selling the second one. They're just too small, they’re in regional towns, and it's just not our product. We haven't expanded for a while as our strategy is not expansion at any cost. I know for a lot of our competitors, they expand quickly. That's not what we're about. We're very much ‘right product, right price’. We are actually in the process of looking for investment at the moment. And we would hope we'll be successful. You never know, I think we do quite a good job. We are speaking to some interested parties so you heard it here first!

If you could launch OSIT abroad where would you choose?

For personal reasons, I'd love to go to Canada because it's got mountains, water and nice people who all speak English. As a strategy, you know, we're definitely London centric but there are some amazing operators that work outside of London, for example Clockwise who have a brilliant product.

Our research tells us you dabbled in the broker world with ‘Offices Now Please’. What was that like in contrast to the operator side?

So, Sarah Singlehurst and myself co-founded the company together. When we left MWB – we set up Offices Now Please, and there were certain brokers in the industry who literally said to us- ‘Don’t do it. It's a really bad idea. We make it look easy and it's not!' They were telling the truth... It's not easy now, and it wasn’t easy then. We thought to ourselves, ‘Ok were two girls, who are a bit boisterous’, so we went for Barbie pink and black business cards, and got them made. When we later showed them to the MD of the Business Centre Association, now known as Flexsa - she said, “You can't use those - you look like prostitutes”. We were mortified but thought we're going to do it anyway!

What do you think about the whole WeWork story – going from a 47 billion dollar valuation in 2019 to Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in North America?

Well, first of all, I think the important thing for everyone to really understand is We Work in the UK is in effect, fine. There's nothing wrong with it, it's not in administration. I think they were brilliant in highlighting the direction of where and how office space was going to be occupied in the future. I thought that was visionary. He's obviously an incredibly talented and charismatic individual who changed our industry. He changed the term ‘serviced offices’. On a google search, no one would search ‘Serviced Offices’ anymore, they would search ‘Co-working’. 

That's a phenomenal thing to change an entire industry. I think that's amazing - the ability to build environments where people are able to connect more easily. Although, the paper thin walls, maybe not a great idea. Glass interiors, really really bad idea. But you know, people got used to it. However, what we do know is, that it was never a tech company despite being portrayed that way, and everybody within our industry; operators, agents and brokers said the same thing.

What do you think about the ever-expanding broker market?

You know, from our perspective, it was great. We had five brilliant agents, brokers, that did an exceptionally good job. And it was easy. The data in the industry was there, you could go to one brokerage and get a really good feel of the market. It was easy for us to maintain relationships and easy for them to understand what's going on in the industry. Then literally, it was like somebody dropped a bomb on those four and it just went boom, and I'm not sure whether it's better for the industry or not.

There aren’t more leads in the market, there is a lot of duplication. Brokers collect the opportunities that are out there through their marketing campaigns, so having more brokers does not generate more business potential into the flex market. I would say from an operator's perspective, it makes it harder to manage, there are more people to build relationships with, more people to communicate with. So it's not better for us or worse, I wouldn’t say there is any benefit to us having more.

Taking OSIT out of the equation, which competitor have you been most impressed with and why?

I think they all have individual strengths and they're all doing a brilliant job in bringing new products into the market. They all have their own niches, and are by definition, successful - they are all growing. I think Huckletree is very impressive, they have ambassadors that are founders of well known brands, that come in and talk to their clients. Storey is another one, who are building 45,000 sq ft of labs in the center of London which is just wow, there is nothing like that in the market. I also think Boutique are incredible, they have a great culture, they have a great niche in the market and they have maintained that really lovely, personable feel even though they've grown dramatically. There's loads I could mention, as I said they are all amazing.

As someone who has been in this industry over 30 years, you have seen all the industry trends, peaks and troughs. How have you and Giles managed to adapt OSIT over the years to keep up with the times?

We haven't adapted to keep up. I think we cut our teeth when the industry was really embryonic, when it was just corridors and offices. There was nothing pleasant about it, they were grey and dull, had a bit of bit of light in a reception, and that was it. But what we learned along the way was that there were all these little things, sound proofing and temperature were always an issue, people complaining there was nowhere to eat.

And so, when we re-entered the market in 2009, we wanted to correct everything that we had seen being done wrong in the time that we'd been in the industry. Then, when we opened Euston Tower, it was revolutionary. We had so much breakout space and table tennis tables, all for the clients, and it just wasn't being done before. We completely changed the landscape. So in answer to the question, I don't think we have adapted. I think we made that big leap at the very beginning, and it turned out to be right. And everybody else has now caught up.

Adaption now, is all about continuing to talk to our clients and having open communication, which is what we've always done. So I would say they are more ‘tweaks’ than ‘adaptations’. For example, pre-pandemic, people charged for telephones but people don’t use phones anymore, they use their mobiles. So it was seeing that this was coming, and adapting. We do roadshows with our clients every quarter, we sit down with them and discuss what is working, what isn’t working, what their challenges are, and we tweak.

What do you think will be the new Flex trends for 2024?

I am quite out of it. However, I think the drive is still around ESG. That's a trend that is still going, I think 2024 will be a year of consolidation, we'll see companies settling down with their hybrid working. The biggest change we will see and have already started to see, is the balance moving from employee to employer. And I think the employer will see our clients feeling more robust about being able to say ‘you need to listen to us’.

What is your go-to-restaurant in London when you are entertaining clients?

I'm a country bumpkin, absolutely not my thing. I don't do London. I've never lived in London. I come into London, I know how to get to the train station and how to get to our centres and that’s it. Although, I would really like to spend some time here, enjoy the restaurants, the culture, but it's not something I've done, I am not a foodie. I wait for nice people to take me to nice restaurants!