Netflix for the hybrid world – How Lendis offers sustainable solutions for the new working world
The COVID-19 pandemic has given the digitization of the working world a sudden boost, paving the ground for Remote Work and Home Office. More than 80% of employees stated that they don’t want to return to the office full-time, opening up the door to a hybrid working world. But the speed at which this transformation is happening creates a great challenge for companies of all sizes: financial resources are limited and office management structures need an update to be suitable for hybrid work. Additionally, the purchase of home office and remote work equipment is cost-intensive and leaves no room for the company to adjust planning as a consequence of economic fluctuations or unpredictable events, such as a pandemic. Furthermore, equipping workers in many different locations is an immense organisational challenge: many individual delivery addresses, onboarding and offboarding, technical support or decentralized inventory management need to be set up remotely and require new workflows and digital processes.
The platform for all hybrid work challenges
Berlin-based start-up Lendis got this figured out and developed an end-to-end solution for hybrid work. Lendis founder Julius Bolz describes it as “Netflix for the hybrid working world”. His company developed a Software-as-a-Service subscription platform that enables companies to set up their teams with all the equipment they need, where they need it, in a simple, digital and monthly cancellable way.
“We’re all part of a massive transformation of work that is going on right now. In the past, work was mostly about the location – the office. This will not be the case anymore. In the future, the employee will be in the center of all work, not the location where work is happening.”, Julius Bolz is convinced.
Via the Lendis platform, a company can set up a curated shop that includes all the equipment required to work from the office or from home: laptops, smartphones, chairs, desks or acoustic solutions. Also, one can define all equipment-related sourcing workflows (e.g., approvals, on- & offboarding) and rules (e.g., budgets). This way, each of the company’s employees can then select and order the equipment they require to work at their best, individually. On top, Lendis developed a comprehensive inventory management feature that provides full transparency on all the equipment, its current status and all related costs with a single click. After an order is processed, Lendis takes care of the entire equipment lifecycle management, from delivery and assembly, over support and maintenance, to refurbishment once the equipment is returned to Lendis at the end of the subscription.
The pricing for a single workplace consisting of a professional chair and a height-adjustable desk starts at € 15 (~ £ 13) per month. Using Lendis, companies can not only save time and energy, but real money: a company with 10,000+ employees can save up to € 1.7 million (~ £ 1.4 million) in total costs, while the savings of a smaller company with around 1,000 employees can amount to € 380,000 (~ £ 320,000). Also, HR and IT managers can reduce up to 75% of the time spent on on- and offboarding employees or administrative tasks like invoicing. Onboarding new colleagues will become at least 2x as fast as compared to not using Lendis.
100% climate-neutral
Sustainability is a core value of the start-up, and therefore Lendis actively works on making their contribution to a sustainable economy. Their approach is based on three pillars:
- Following the concept of Circular Economy, all equipment is rented out to many different companies, extending each product’s total life time. If a customer does not need a workplace set up anymore and cancels the subscription, Lendis picks up all the equipment from the customer, refurbishes it and rents it out to another company.
- Lendis only works with suppliers who adhere to sustainable and environmentally friendly production practices. Most of Lendis’ product portfolio is sustainability certified (e.g., FSC) and one will find desks and chairs made from recycled materials across many of Lendis’ product categories.
- Also, Lendis partners with companies like planetly and forto to offset 100% of all the carbon dioxide emitted over the entire lifecycle of each product that is rented out to their customers. This includes production, logistics, daily use, refurbishment and disposal at the end of a product’s life.
Using Lendis, large companies can compensate for more than 6 million kilos CO2, while smaller companies can offset up to 2 million kilos CO2. Lendis makes all the equipment climate neutral to use for its customers.
The operating system for the hybrid work setting
To this day, Lendis has equipped more than 100,000 workstations with furniture and electronic devices. With their “Workplace-as-a-Service” model, Lendis has won over 800 clients from Germany and across Europe, doubling the number of employees and customers in 2020 only. Among these are well-known companies like Lufthansa, WWF and Personio, for instance. Venture capital investors such as HV Capital, DN Capital or Picus Capital have invested repeatedly.
During the pandemic, Lendis has focused even more towards providing smart technology concepts for their clients. In future, Lendis wants to further develop their platform, in order to provide an even more comprehensive, intelligent solution for employee management and equipment sourcing workflows.
As a next step, the start-up aims to take on the pan-European region and to provide its service to every European company that wants to ensure efficient and well-running workplaces for their employees – no matter if in the office or remote. Every step Lendis takes follows their vision to become THE operating system for hybrid work in the future.
