Dr. Gleb Tsipursky – The Office Whisperer
Nirit Cohen – WorkFutures
Angela Howard – Culture Expert
Drew Jones – Design & Innovation
Jonathan Price – CRE & Flex Expert
About This Episode
In this episode of The Future of Work® Podcast, host Frank Cottle engages with Harun Biswas, Founder and CEO of UltraSoft Technologies and architect of UltraSoftBIS, the leading ERP‑style platform for flexible workspaces. With over three decades of experience building scalable, tech‑driven solutions for industry leaders like Regus (now IWG), Harun shares how data‑driven systems and generative AI are empowering workspace operators to transition from reactive manual effort to proactive, automated decision‑making.
The conversation explores how marrying human intuition with analytics, forecasting via AI, and seamless automation allows operators to unlock profitability, resilience, and growth — offering listeners a blueprint for the future of workspace and workplace tech.
About Harun Biswas
Harun Biswas is the Founder and CEO of UltraSoft Technologies Ltd and the architect of UltraSoftBIS – the ultimate software system for the workspace industry. Â
With over 30 years of experience in the flexible workplace industry, he specializes in computer system architecture, cross-platform application design, engineering, global IT systems, and AI and business automation technologies. Â
Biswas has worked with some of the largest companies in the serviced office sector (such as Regus, now IWG), helping define the systems and processes that many successful operators continue to follow today. Â
He remains actively engaged with leading workspace providers, developing practical, scalable, and tech-driven ERP solutions that continue to bring profitability and long-term growth to the industry.Â
What You’ll LearnÂ
- Why adaptability and human‑centric design are critical for tech success in the workspace industryÂ
- How converting raw data into actionable insight enables smarter, faster business decisionsÂ
- Ways AI and machine learning streamline lead handling, proposals, forecasting, and reportingÂ
- How integrated CRM and analytics empower marketing teams to optimize performanceÂ
- Why physical workspace remains relevant—and how technology will enhance, not eliminate, the human touch in future work environmentsÂ
Transcript
Harun Biswas [00:00:00] The adaptation is one of the key factors. The technology got to be also human-centric. It got to build for human, not for robots, not for just for the sake of technology that it does wonderful things. It got solve the problem that help human, so human can adapt to it, or the technology best adapt to the human.
Frank Cottle [00:00:21] Harun Welcome to the Future Work Podcast. Gosh, it’s so great to have you here. 30 years, maybe 35 years of experience you had on the flexible workspace industry and thousands, multiple thousands of spenders you’ve worked with over the years. You’ve always said, I’ve known you a while now, that technology is the future and also the past of our industry. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Can you explain some of your philosophies on that and how you try to contribute to that?
Harun Biswas [00:00:54] First of all, thank you, Frank, for having me on the podcast. It’s really a pleasure and nice to see you. I hope you will. Yes, for Altsoft, it has been always about technology in the past and now the future. So. Like any technology actually. It’s key to the success of any business, not just Future of Works. The adaptation is one of the key factors. How fast a company or an operator, or in this case, an operator of a Future Works, adopt a technology. The adaptability is key, because technology is out there, but how fast they can adapt, that can define their survival. Another thing I would say. The technology got to be also human centric. It got to build for human, not for robots, not for, you know, just for the sake of technology, that it does wonderful things. It got the solve the problem that help human. So human can adapt to it. Or the technology best adapt to the human. Okay, so adaptability and human-centric and also… The information. In the past, we were providing technology that can solve the problems that exist in the business.
Frank Cottle [00:02:31] And Harun, if I can interrupt, what problem was that specifically that existed?
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Harun Biswas [00:02:40] Multiple problems existed in the past. For instance, the process that an operator go through to acquire.
Frank Cottle [00:02:51] By operator, you mean a business or a co-working center operator.
Harun Biswas [00:02:55] That’s right, the workspace operator, in fact. So they would do lots of work manually, human centric. As a result, the problem would be to actually document that and get meaningful information out of it. So the data was generated either human by system but making the data useful for business decision making for future profitability was difficult because they are they were lacking structure but I see in the future data could be an asset it’s an asset already for other industry if you see social media giants they’re using the data as an asset look at google look at facebook look at whatsapp linkedin their main asset is data
Frank Cottle [00:03:49] Well, their main product is data. We’ve had a, you’ve known me for a while and I’m kind of a data freak, as you know. And we have a mantra in our own company and I think it applies to what you’re saying, is get the data, data becomes information, which creates knowledge, which allows action. So get the date. Data without information and knowledge, where you don’t take is worthless. It’s just stuff. So, going through that migration, which is what Ultrasoft’s system does on behalf of business center, co-working center operators, and corporate clients as well, institutional corporate clients, as well. What kind of actions are they able to take that helps them run their business more successfully or create new products to service their clients more appropriately?
Harun Biswas [00:04:47] Once they turn the data into an asset and plug in some sort of technology that allows them to automate the data mining, analyzing and giving meaningful answer to their question rather than human.
Frank Cottle [00:05:06] It not only saves time and process, because the processes are what deliver the data, but it also gives them knowledge to take additional actions on the better understandings. Is that correct?
Harun Biswas [00:05:22] Exactly. For instance, give an example, say a space operator or workspace operator, they want to see what product was the most money-making in the last 10 years. For a human, it would be impossible to do that. But a system, once you have the data, because the system is manipulating this data, using that data, generating that data throughout the entire process, system should be able to tell you analytics such as your profitability for a particular item to the to the point when you ask from last 10 years information and then you can see did you really ever made any
Frank Cottle [00:06:11] Hopefully it doesn’t take 10 years to figure that out, but you’re right. The data allows that, and I think we have, as human beings, we have two brains. We have one in our head, and then we have our gut, our instincts overall, and with The information that is available through systems such as yours. You can combine those two things because a lot of times your brain can analyze things, but your gut tells you what to do today based on that analysis. And honestly, data, the good news is you’ve got lots of information. The bad news it is, it’s all historical. It’s yesterday. What happened yesterday? And you have to plan for what’s going to tomorrow. So how do you transition that data? Or that information created from the data, for companies to guide themselves for what to do tomorrow in the future of work, as opposed to just know what happened yesterday.
Harun Biswas [00:07:22] You see, that’s a very interesting, you know, question, because you have the data from not only just past, a system also has the data for future future, how a customer going to use your space in the workspace environment. So you are sort of lucky to actually have that sort of data in your system. So you can ask the system, okay, tell me next six months, how is my revenue going to look like and where those revenues are coming from. And base that information, so it’s not just your gut feeling. I have those gut feelings, but I trust more the data because that gives you the certainty of what’s going to happen. Because you signed a contract, so you know foreseeable future you are booked and you will see that your occupancy level is going to drop in next after five months and then you need to worry but if you have the data right now and you are monitoring those analytics you should be able to take actions right now
Frank Cottle [00:08:38] It’s funny, data that operating systems collect and the financial data that is the outcome of that is critically important. But simultaneously, if you’re going to forecast and you have to understand all your marketing data as well in advance, you have you have look at both of those things at the same time. If you look at them separately… Let’s say your web analytics, as an example, look at your web analytics, your drivers there separately on a different day even, then financial and operational analytics, you really can’t forecast as well, you have to pull those things together. Do you have an interface to help with that? Or do you have a process that you’ve seen that helps people understand how to do that so that they truly can forecast outbound as you’re saying.
Harun Biswas [00:09:36] Well, we do. So the entire CRM solution, which actually capture data, the leads comes in through AI, because we have an AI integration.
Frank Cottle [00:09:48] With all the sourcing of those leaves
Harun Biswas [00:09:50] Exactly, exactly. So we have all the sources. So when exactly from what source leads are coming and they are turning into viewing a stage or to proposal and then proposal turning into agreement. So the data actually flows from the beginnings for a simple inquiries to actually becoming a proper opportunity. And we track the source as well. So the marketing team can see what source really worked. Better than others. Of course, they cannot predict what’s going to work in the future, but that’s a gut feeling you need, but the data is going to help you to make those decisions because you know in the last six months, Google did excellent or AllWorks did better or something, so you have to have all that information which could be useful for the marketing team as well.
Frank Cottle [00:10:41] Well, you know, with marketing is changing so radically, we used to talk a lot if we wanted to promote our website. So we had two main ways to do that, paid, organic. Artificial intelligence is taking over both of those. We don’t have search engine optimization so much anymore as we have answer engine optimization with artificial intelligence. How do you think artificial intelligence will impact the way that technology is developed to help operators or to help coworking center operators in the future, address the future of work? And all the changes that are coming forth, what additional tasks will be able to be done within systems such as Ultrasoft?
Harun Biswas [00:11:38] Even before we had AI, we know now, we have been using machine learning. Sure. We were tracking leads. We were answering leads automatically. We are matching leads to locations, to managers who can take care of. So we have being doing those machine learning, and that was a hard work. But recent AI. In a very large language module, LLM, are helping great because with a simple call to OpenAI or Microsoft Copilot or Google Gemini can tell you straight away the answer you want, where before a programmer had to program for a week to get a meaningful answer of arbitrary data that you receive through email or through websites or whatever. So now that task is very, very simple for us. We just give the whole email or the whole inquiry to the AI and ask this meaningful data and we get that in literally less than a second.
Frank Cottle [00:12:39] Well, you know, it’s interesting. We talk about that information in general. One of the industry associations runs a webinar regularly. It says, ask me anything. And they have an expert there or somebody that has some experience and the audience can ask them anything they want. What we’re doing over at Allwork, I’m pitching Allwork a little bit there is we’re taking the composite. 100% of all of our content, 100% of all our podcasts, and all of the information from authority speakers, authoritative individuals, combining that into a new Ask Me Anything. So the level of information verse of thousands and thousands and thousands of articles and hundreds and hundreds of podcasts and expert speakers can all be consolidated into that Ask Me anything. And I think when it comes to data, when it comes to a system gaining additional insights through that process, whether it’s the way we’re doing it or whether it is the way that you’re beginning to do it, has to be hugely beneficial for forward planning as you look towards a future of work.
Harun Biswas [00:14:00] Absolutely, absolutely. See, the AI and the impact of AI on any business is going to be huge. Already you have enormous benefit from AI in future of works, if you think how it’s going to work out. And if you look at the operator, because we concentrate more on the operator of future works. And so that means it’s all about future works and how it’s going to. Chains and at what speed. So AI is going to change the way and how fast the operator is adapting the demand of the future workspace. So already you know hybrid workspace, you know remote working, people are asking return to office, all kind of hype around. So the How is? AI going to help with all that is still not fully defined, I would say, but it’s still we can see that it’s changing the way it’s going to speed up in the velocity of progression is going to increase or velocity of the change.
Frank Cottle [00:15:16] It’s interesting, as we look back over the history of the flexible workspace industry, and I look back, over 45 years, I know until about 2000, it was very much a service-focused industry. Then between 2000 and 2002, that started to erode because all the clients had their own PCs, all the client wanted to do everything themselves, et cetera, et cetera. And then the number of staff members started going down Thank you. The clients weren’t buying services. Between 2000 and 2000 and now, the centers have gotten smaller and smaller staffs, less and less services and have been more about community, space, design, location, which are all important things. But the services to help a customer build their business were diminished. Now with AI coming on, you can begin to provide some of those same services with the reduced staff, if you’re creative enough to do so and bring yet another revenue line back to the industry and the flexible workspace industry and a benefit to the customers. How do you see UltraSoft participating in that kind of evolution, if you will, because I think it’s critical that operating systems such as yours lead the way on that, and really help the operators to find new revenue sources or refine new revenue forces.
Harun Biswas [00:16:52] You see, Ultrasoft is not just a system, it’s a cloud-based platform. So AI is the key behind it. So from an operator perspective, if a system can remove all the manual work, leaving the employees to actually be free to serve, like you mentioned, the customer, obviously then the service become more profitable the attention of the customer becomes easier and once you hook a customer it will be difficult to get rid of them because they will like you, they like the environment, they will like the service and everything runs smoothly. So AI is going to help auto subsystems to actually become more automated. It’s not going to do the work for Ultrasoft AI, but we’re going to speed up. I mentioned the velocity of doing things. So Altersoft is going to use the AI to actually speed up the process. So before they would have to, you know, cut and paste information, maybe from external sources, they can just drop that whole 10 page and Ultrasoft will make meaningful data out of it. So. Leaving the user actually free from all that manual work, cutting and pasting and what is the customer misspelling, all that will be gone. So generating an agreement or a proposal, it will be a matter of seconds or automated fully integrated with their offerings, with their sites, with their websites, with the marketing team, everything will be so integrated that they will have very little to do in terms of Running their business. Okay, so they will become more service centric. So the human Will be enjoying their role as a manager as a customer service or community manager Or a sales manager or a director director doesn’t need to ask the manager anymore Can you give me your center profitability? Report because it will be delivered automatically to him whenever he wants in the middle of the night or in the morning when he’s having breakfast.
Frank Cottle [00:19:12] Well, hopefully, for me, it’s neither of those. You spend the night and in the morning having breakfast. I’m having breakfast, you know, it it’s funny. We’ve both seen a big evolution in the physical centers through the years. Do you think physical office space will become obsolete? Or how do you think it will evolve if you don’t think so? Changes that we’re seeing I Don’t know I’m working from home. I don’t know where you’re working from today if that’s your office or your home
Harun Biswas [00:19:50] I’m in the office today.
Frank Cottle [00:19:54] So you’re in the office today and I’m in my home today. You’ve known me for many years and I always work part of my home. I don’t like office, which is funny because I’m the office business. But do you think that physical spaces are going to change radically or even a large percentage of them disappear? If you look at return to office issues, 73% of the global Fortune 100. Still has hybrid work and remote work going for more than 50 percent of their employees. Is that going to stick, stay? Where are we going to find the pendulum balancing in physical space?
Harun Biswas [00:20:39] In my view, given we interact with so many operators and we see even up to the moment data what is coming in and going out as an operator, what they’re doing for space in a workspace industry, the answer, short answer to your question, is it going to be obsolete? Absolutely not, because the technology is going to take over. Lots of steps, but they can never take over the human intelligence, the human touch, the final decision-making. Simple, defined, that is 100% defined, technology will be able to help you with that. But where there is an element you need human, which you call gut feelings that that is still will be will belong to human and not only that say. In 10 years time or the next two decades, technology will evolve and it becomes so mature that 99% of the tasks that we do today will be automated. Even then, think about the technology you will require to run your business. Whatever that business is, you will need an office environment because this technology is going to be expensive. Technology is already expensive now. And very discreet at this moment and very much not integrated. So what is happening? If you want a meaningful technology that will perform lots of tasks, that will require an office environment. So the future workspace is actually unfortunately going to stay. It’s not going to be, you know, obsolete. Now the question is, you mentioned, is it going to the hybrid remote working combination. You know, multiple way of working? Yes, definitely. So I might work fifty percent of my time or sixty or seventy percent of my time at home because I have the facility technology but there will be certain things that I’ll have to meet people because human are community based you know like any other animal in the world they don’t They don’t work. You know, and we are the most sophisticated animal with brain and thinking power and we need human interaction. And I think future world workspace is going to provide that as a service, not only just technology for you, but in a very accessible. So you’ll have to adopt, you know, where you provide the services near you or distance place. So people don’t like to travel. So they will like more space close to them.
Frank Cottle [00:23:35] Correct, correct. I don’t think too many people mind being in the office, but I don t know anybody that likes to commute. So I think that’s an issue. You know, it’s funny, for years, since about 1915 or 16, we’ve been saying that there’s no such thing as an office occupier. But instead, we are all travelers, period. We are all travelers. And using myself as an example and yourself, what you just said, sometimes your home, sometimes your office, we generally work from three types of places today. An office, a home, and a third workplace. Could be a business or a co-working center or even a Starbucks cafe or something at different times of time. But we’re all travelers, really. We aren’t working from anywhere. We’re working from everywhere. And the technology has developed to the degree where it’s ubiquitous. And it doesn’t really matter where we are anymore. So if that’s the case, then the amount of physical space needed for primary office will be reduced. Third place will be increased. And homes are being designed differently. I have some friends that are large home developers. They build thousands of homes every year. They don’t build a home anymore that doesn’t have permanently installed or considered workspace areas.
Harun Biswas [00:25:09] Right.
Frank Cottle [00:25:11] Off the kitchen, near the bedrooms. There’s always workspace designed now into all the new homes, just because of the changes in the way that we’re going about things. So I don’t think there’s an office occupier. I think there are only travelers.
Harun Biswas [00:25:32] Good analogy. I think it’s interesting way up.
Frank Cottle [00:25:35] Isn’t obsolete, but the concept of being a permanent occupier only working from an office is obsolete. That’s my opinion.
Harun Biswas [00:25:46] Yeah, I agree. I agree, but the need, total need cannot be written off yet.
Frank Cottle [00:25:57] Oh, no. No, agreed. And again, use your and my relationship. We’ve had a long distance relationship for decades. And once or twice a year, we meet in person. And it’s always great. It’s always good. You know, we share different things and that sort of thing. And when we meet in person, oftentimes, that’s when we actually make decisions.
Harun Biswas [00:26:19] Absolutely. And also, Frank, don’t forget that the human interaction bit, without that, once we are isolated, we can develop all kinds of issues, mental issues, you know, which I don’t know, I didn’t see any stat yet, or I didn’t have a chance to dig into it, but I’m sure in the future, those who will be working purely from offices, this, you know. All day sitting in a room somewhere alone, there will be consequences and impact on our human quality and mind and in our achievement. So in order to be together with a group of people, similar minded, doing certain things together, you know, brings not only, like you said, productive and decision-making environment, but also for mental health is important.
Frank Cottle [00:27:16] Well, we just did a very interesting interview with one of the lead architects from Perkins and Will, one of major architectural firms in the world, one of largest ones in the World. And the whole purpose of that podcast was to discuss how office design and officeing plan designs impact loneliness and the positives and the negatives of it. But when I use the term officing. I’m using all three workplaces, home, hybrid, and a traditional office. When I use the word office space, I’m losing just a traditional office as a design. But things like the way you design. Oh, just coffee stations. Do you make all the coffee stations in the middle so everybody can get to easily, or do you put the coffee station down at the end of the road so everybody has to walk past everybody else to get to it? Yes. Simple little things like that.
Harun Biswas [00:28:18] Make a big difference here.
Frank Cottle [00:28:20] Have to make a huge difference. There’s also, we talk about loneliness as an issue within the workplace or as an issues within the human experience. But there are a lot of people that are because of technology, very comfortable and I’m one of them, with solitude. I’m on of those people that’s very happy by myself. Um, uh, and it’s not because I don’t love others. You’ve seen years. I, you know, I love others, but I’m very comfortable not being in a environment that disturbs my focus. Um, so I think that there’s a generation that perhaps Gen Z who’s totally digital native, um, perhaps. Their concept of loneliness or their concept of the need for interaction might be different than someone like a boomer like myself, that I’m a millennial that has a totally different. And in management today, technology has to think about managing five generations of users simultaneously with the same system. How do you think that trend is going to impact what we do in the future of orbit? What do you other important trends that will impact where we’re going?
Harun Biswas [00:29:56] Sorry, can you just rephrase that?
Frank Cottle [00:29:59] Well, how do you think the trend of having to have technology that serves five different generations with the same technology? You don’t have an old guy technology and a young guy technology. You have clearly the tech. It is what it is and everybody has to use it the same. So how do you manage something for five different generations because one of the trends in the workplace. Older people are working longer, younger people are coming in younger and with a whole different set of expectations and experience. Maybe they didn’t graduate college, but maybe they’ve been studying through AI or through other sources, and they have just as much experience in that as if they were college students. Everything’s changing in the workplace, people-wise.
Harun Biswas [00:30:51] So I think the simple answer is the technology doesn’t matter what generation you are from. Technology remain constant. Because if you look at it, the technology you have available now, certain technology is being used by Genji and certain technologies by Bloomer or Millennia. So they all use different technology. But the technology, what we have is a constant. Okay, so when it comes to future, that’s when we have to measure up and find a balance when you are delivering solution. Okay, it’s very important that we address that. We’re already addressing that because the attention span for GenG is very very little and you are hiring all your community future managers, future community. You know, managers and then representatives, they come straight from the uni. All they have used, you know most of them is their phone, iPhone or some sort of mobile devices. They even don’t know what is a, you know, a ethernet card or a network interface card or whatever. They don’t about that. All of a sudden they will come into the building. In the workspace environment and if they have a managerial role, they will be patching, you know, data and phone and all that, you know, from one room to another. It gets very, very complicated for them, you see. So the technology needs to adapt, provide them with the interface that can not only educate them as they use it, also induct them into technology that They should know. Because otherwise you will have a skill shortage. And that’s dangerous because the seniors will be seasoned out, you know, and then you have a skills shortage, the young one will come in, Genji, they will not know any of those. So our technology has to adapt. Not them, our technology has to adopt to actually to all generations, so making sure. That is very intuitive, is very, you know, automated and foolproof. So that if they make a mistake, system can correct them. Look, sorry, you are not going to do that because that will have that. That consequence. So system has to be adapted to the generation. So that’s one of the biggest consideration when we design systems, because that’s very, very important.
Frank Cottle [00:33:42] Well, I think that when we talk about cross-generational issues… That artificial intelligence will make the interface with all technologies much more effective and much more ubiquitous in the way that we use it. That will have a huge impact on the way we do things. So maybe we need to depend upon it, look at it as becoming more and more sentient. It will, which I think whether it does or doesn’t, our impression is that it will become more so. And look at it as a co-worker, in fact, we won’t hire or create a position in our own company today, and plus the position has preset an AI assistant with the position.
Harun Biswas [00:34:40] Right.
Frank Cottle [00:34:41] So AI comes along with each position today in our company as part of the productivity capability of the individual teammate. And I think that we’re not alone in that. I think we’re just part of a major trend that goes that direction. So I think it’s that. Well, gosh, Harun, this has been fascinating. I really appreciate your time today. I know how busy you are. Thousands of centers that you’re you’re helping out right now. If somebody wanted to learn more about you or Ultrasoft, where would they reach you? How would they read you?
Harun Biswas [00:35:23] Well, they can browse through our websites or directly connect with me through the link in so.
Frank Cottle [00:35:31] And what is your website again, I don’t have that in front of me.
Harun Biswas [00:35:35] It’s UltraSoftBIS.com
Frank Cottle [00:35:38] UltrasoftBIS.com, Okay, that would be easy enough. And will you be at the next Global Workplace Association meeting?
Harun Biswas [00:35:49] Yes, I’m hoping to, to be there.
Frank Cottle [00:35:52] Great. Okay. Well, great. Well if they can’t connect with you through your website, then maybe they can connect with your there.
Harun Biswas [00:35:59] Absolutely. Absolutely. I’ll be also in the co-working Europe. Okay. Okay. And also some other events coming up in London, I believe soon will be there.
Frank Cottle [00:36:10] I know you’re a speaker and very much an activist throughout the industry for years and years. So I’ll look forward to seeing you at the next event.
Harun Biswas [00:36:20] Me too. Thank you so much.
Frank Cottle [00:36:22] Thank you, Harun.
