Swire Internship

How might we enhance the office working experience for corporate employees?

During my internship at John Swire and Sons, I was tasked along with a group of 6 to carry out a business case for Swire Properties, researching co-working and remote working trends and their impact on commercial leases, and produce a solution for navigating the current trends, where we made a business case for an exclusive members club called The Swire Club.

Team
Swire Properties Business development

Role
Business Analyst

Timeline
May - Aug 2023

Disciplines and tools
Experience Design
Service Design
Project Management
Strategic thinking
Business Analysis
Market Research
Presentation

Targeting user needs

Data shows that around 50% of workers in Hong Kong would like to work from home. We interviewed from junior to senior corporate employees working in complexes under Swire Properties, including the Pacific Place in Hong Kong and Taikoo Place, and understood that it was the commute and unappealing office spaces that made workers not want to go back to the office.

However, an opportunity also lies in the fact that Hong Kong living spaces are generally really cramped and lacking in amenities, so if an office space fills the gap of missing amenities and a higher quality working space, if could attract more workers back to the office and thus make a worthy investment of companies in commercial leases. As seen below these are the views of some of the corporate employees working in Swire complexes.

Redesigning the Office Experience - The Swire Club

An all encompassing solution would be an in-house membership club which is exclusively accessible to workers in the commercial complex. Swire commercial complexes have co-working spaces like BluePrint, and a high end membership club called The Refinery. Our solution merges them together with the addition of amenities like fitness, catering; as well as placing the club in an easily accessible location in the complexes: such as a whole floor on bottom levels with direct level access.

Analysis and Pitch

Financial analysis of project impact puts The Swire Club at 2.8M HKD annual revenue, and we also analysed other aspects of the project, like competitor analysis / limitations / sustainability impact etc. And along with my team of 6 interns, the results are pitched to the cohort and Swire senior executives.

During the project, I learnt the skill of crossfunctional collaboration, working with interns who come from different disciplines, curating solutions together. I also got my hand into using qualitative research to back up our ideas, to influence business decisions.