You’ve told us what is keeping you awake at night.

Our recent Operator survey, which over 200 of you completed , asked the question ‘what is the biggest challenge you and your business face?’ The state of the economy and the impact it has on business expansion featured heavily. No surprise there!

Linked to that were concerns around being able to reduce vacant space and the pressure from clients and prospective clients to reduce rates.

Some smaller Operators who specialise in high quality serviced offices are finding clients shifting to lower cost office spaces. Again a result of the slow and unpredictable economy.

But its far from all bad news, many Operators are actually struggling to meet demand and quote high levels of growth in the serviced office market. For some, the only challenge is to be able to continue to deliver that level of growth year on year. A nice challenge to have.

This is reflected in our Global Serviced Office Review where we reported that the serviced office market had grown 19% during the recession. Businesses continue to introduce flexibility into their property portfolio, reducing their risk and exposure. That is a great selling point in these straightened and unpredictable times.

Moving on to other challenges, a theme which cropped up regularly was the sales funnel. Specifically getting quality and qualified leads, turning enquiries into viewings and then the length of time clients take to make decisions. The latter is again a symptom of the economy as businesses become more cautious about spending budgets.

Find out what improvements we're making in 2012 >