Background
Pivotal helps the world’s leading organizations accelerate their digital innovation processes. Every week, clients from organizations like GE, Citi, and Mercedes Benz come to Pivotal offices around the world to work side-by-side with expert developers and designers. This hands-on approach allows clients to observe and absorb Pivotal’s distinctive, team approach to software development.
This means that all of Pivotal’s offices have to meet a specific set of company-wide standards designed to ensure that they support collaborative work processes, and make a favorable impression on visiting clients.
The Challenge
Pivotal had seen tremendous growth in the Atlanta market, and had quickly outgrown its offices in a coworking space. As Pivotal looked for a long-term solution, it faced a difficult challenge: finding a high-quality, professional environment that reflected its brand and work style, while maintaining the flexibility to grow in the years ahead.
The team’s existing arrangement was no longer working. Employees were divided between several small offices in a coworking space, and the environment did not reflect Pivotal’s brand standards. Like many fast-growing companies, Pivotal was weighing two imperfect options:
1. Commit to a lease of 10 years or more, and invest in a custom buildout. This would allow for a high degree of control over the office layout and design, but would require substantial upfront capital. A traditional lease also would force a difficult decision: either pay for excess square footage in anticipation of future growth, or find a space that fit in the present, and possibly have to move again within two to three years.
2. Take on additional space in a shared office setup similar to its current home. This minimize upfront costs and give Pivotal the flexibility to move again if necessary, but would would mean settling for a lower-quality workspace, which would hurt the team’s efforts to recruit top talent and deliver the best experience for visiting clients.
The Solution
Industrious offered a middle path with a customized 10,500 square foot workspace in Atlanta’s Ponce City Market that could accommodate over 100 employees and visiting clients. Since the dedicated suite was a part of Industrious’ larger workspace, Pivotal avoided major expenses related to the traditional office search and construction process.
Industrious came in early and everything was so easy. We said to ourselves, ‘Industrious should do more of our build outs!’ We are obsessed.
—Pivotal Atlanta Operations Manager
—Pivotal Atlanta Operations Manager
They skipped the headaches that come with building an office from scratch, and instead focused on the design, furnishing, and IT setup questions that mattered most to the team’s experience. The result was a workspace that met the company’s exacting standards, delivered in a matter of weeks, with significantly lower upfront capital requirements.
Employees and visiting clients enjoy a private kitchen and lounge, while a branded reception area and private entrance create a self-contained, distinctive feel to the office. Pivotal has its own conference rooms, as well as access to the wider Industrious community space to utilize for larger events.
Being in Ponce City Market — a vibrant mixed-use development at the site of the stunningly repurposed Sears & Roebuck building — helped raise Pivotal’s profile within the local tech community and proved to be a major recruiting hook.
Pivotal’s three year agreement provided much more flexibility than the company could have achieved with a traditional lease. Industrious also was able to offer an option on additional space should the team grow beyond expectation.
Industrious’ flexible lease terms accommodate our growth and changing business needs. The move-in ready quality of the space meant lower capital investment, and being part of a community has helped our team build connections in the area.
— Senior Program Manager, Pivotal