Working From_ is the new coworking concept from The Hoxton.

We caught up with Marcos Eleftheriou, Head of Culture and Internal Communications for Ennismore, the hospitality group behind The Hoxton and Gleneagles, to get his thoughts on our work which has taken place ahead of Working From_ launching its first London location in early 2020.

Hey Marcos, Working From_ is The Hoxton’s coworking concept, you’ve got one in Fulton Market, Chicago which is set up and working, and now you’re on the verge of launching Southwark in London. At what point did you approach Azuronaut in terms of planning?
We were working with Azuronaut at Ennismore and had built a solid relationship with a company with good values and morals. When we came to thinking about creating an online community for Working From_, Workplace was the obvious choice.

So we thought why don’t we use our membership system with Connect [Azuronaut’s provisioning tool, formerly known as Mesh] in the middle, and then Workplace. It meant for us there is only one place where you need to go to activate/deactivate a member. All the details are correct and consistent, as it all runs through Connect, so obviously Azuronaut and Connect were a natural choice.

Simplifying the process to deliver benefits

In terms of the Membership Team, what were the business benefits to this work?
The process has been simplified a lot. The Membership Engagement manager takes over once the sale has been finalised and add the new member to our membership management system. Before the new member arrives, we send them a welcome email which includes a link to join Workplace. How is this possible? Through Connect pulling through all the data in the background.

We didn’t want to create our members’ Workplace accounts with any personal or work details – like their email account – so it was imperative we used Connect to provision their Workplace accounts with their membership IDs. We’ve treated them as those they’re ‘email-less’. Using Connect, once the account is created, Connect puts their Workplace ID and access code into the membership database.

Having the Azuronaut work that has gone on pre-launch, it must have been really good to have it all ready.
It was super easy, speedy and ready for launch. There were a couple of tweaks once we realised how it all worked together, and we have another Bot that books meeting rooms that is integrated, so it also needed to collaborate with our membership system to make sure it was picking up the details correctly. The Bot uses the user’s Workplace ID to connect their two accounts, so Connect was integral to making everything work so seamlessly.

The Bot uses the user’s Workplace ID to connect their two accounts, so Connect was integral to making everything work so seamlessly.

The value of a solid relationship

And in terms of the working relationship between Azuronaut and you guys…
It was much quicker and better. It didn’t come without its challenges, and actually we found some things that didn’t work, but Matthias [Azuronaut’s Head of Architecture] was really great at working round them and finding solutions using different ideas. Before we launched, we made some final changes to some details, but it was really super quick and easy.

In terms of the account management, do you think that is something Azuronaut do well?
Yeah. It has always been a very personable, very face-to-face relationship which has always been good. It has always been a very well managed account. Also quite understanding, and if I pushed for stuff that wasn’t normally done they would always try and do it, and give it a go, and either come back and say we’ve done it, or come back and say it was technically not possible; so from my side it has always been an amazing relationship.

In terms of Ennismore and Working From_ what is next for you guys for work of this ilk, are there any big objectives you have for 2020-1 beyond?
We have a few things up our sleeve in the year ahead – a lot more sites opening for example. But based on this work, and our experience with Azuronaut it is definitely the ambition to have an

From my side it has always been an amazing relationship. It has always been a very personable, face-to-face relationship.

Marcos Eleftheriou