Reducing the hassles and friction for busy people coming in to work.
With more employees returning to office and organizations needing to provide a seemless way for their employees to be able connect when they are there, we spent some time with the Head of Nimway’s Lars-Gunnar Lundgren and Sales Executive Americas, Robert Pickral to find out how their global solution has evolved to support the needs of today’s new hybrid workforce.
Nimway is a smart office solution that allows employees to control their day through choosing spaces where they can perform at their best while also helping organizations gain valuable and transformative insights about the true utilization of their spaces.
WDM: The story of how Nimway came to be is so unique. Can you tell us about it?
LG Lundgren: As early adopters of activity-based work dating back to 2010, Nimway was developed in 2016 as an internal tool to help Sony’s own employees find their way, find places to meetup and to find each other around the 13 different buildings on their large campus in Lund, Sweden. Sony’s tech and UX designers came together to create the first application which was very well received internally. The company quickly realized that they are not unique with these issues and that they had an opportunity to do something about it on a global scale.
WDM: When we interviewed you in 2021, Nimbubbles were an innovative addition. Can you speak to any new features or functions that are popular with endusers?
Robert Pickral: Nimbubbles continues to be a user favorite in terms of our location services. Specifically, if you have a busy day in the office, you can walk up to the kiosk and it tells you where to go next so you don’t have to even think about it.
Robert Pickral: And then there’s the Arrive on Time feature which gives you a nudge when it’s time to get to the next meeting, taking into account where you need to be and how much time you need to get there using our location services technology.
We have a continuous feedback loop from our clients and recent iterations have to do with office access in which your favorites can see what days you are coming in which serves as a cultural encouragement to go back in the office so they can socialize and interact with the right people in the right space.
LG Lundgren: The Add a Room feature to an existing meeting removes frustrations of managing hybrid meetings and to optimize workflows.
WDM: How can your new features help real estate and facility managers stay on top of their company’s changing space needs?
WDM: How do you uniquely help organization manage the peaks and valleys of space utilization in a typical week?
LG Lundgren: Our solution helps customers counteract wasted space (i.e. booked but empty)through nimbubbles and nudges plus hard and soft reminders but what is truly unique are our integrated sensors. We eliminate relying on employees to touch a screen when they come into a reserved room, rather by simply walking in to a room, our sensors know and that’s how you claim that you are there.
Additionally, Nimway helps with occupied but not booked situations such as spontaneous meeting without booking upfront. It’s important to offer this solution for flexible and dynamic workplaces. Knowing that not everyone shows up for a reserved room, we have one client that actually encourages spontaneous meetings to start at 15 minutes after the top of an hour so they can pick spaces based upon what was most recently released. This is especially helpful on peak days.
WDM: How is Nimway supporting ESG and wellness initiatives?
LG Lundgren: Nimway is an open system that integrates with other building systems such as helping companies decide how many floors they might need open because the intent to show up (attendance) is known well in advance. This is a major advantage when it comes to rightsizing and stacking your portfolio.
Also Nimway helps nudge employees into better behaviors.
WDM: Sony is a leader tech in the fields of AI and machine learning, so how is Nimway using AI or planning to use AI in your solution and what can we look forward to in the future?
LG Lundgren: That’s what we’ll talking about at CoreNet so come by our booth #453 (located in front of the lunch area)!
WDM: What else will you be sharing at CoreNet?
Robert Pickral: In terms of the problems key stakeholders are trying solve on behalf of occupants, our seamless solutions provide better tech experiences than what you can get at home is what we will be showing. We’ve been working on a concept called the “curated workday” that we will debut at CoreNet. Nimway removes the daily frustrations that we have become numb to this tech impacts for the better they operate in the workplace, for the better.
True business intelligence for decision making.
LG Lundgren: We will be showing off the live system and demonstrate live workflows. As part of Sony, we are all about creativity, trust, quality, and sustainability.
WDM: What do your customers report they like most?
LG Lundgren: We hear all the time, customers say, “it just works.”
This article was published in partnership with Nimway.
