We popped by Scintilla‘s office to meet with Suzanne Oliver, Director of IP Strategy. During our visit, Suzanne told us all about Scintilla’s exciting progress and shared their experiences of finding the right workspace for their Manchester base.
First, could you tell us a little bit about your business?
Scintilla is a firm of UK and European Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys. We help companies secure their Intellectual Property (IP) and guide them on how best to optimise, utilise and monetise their precious intangible assets. We aim to empower inventors to continue innovating, whilst protecting their creations and brands.
Founded a decade ago, Scintilla has experienced vast growth, having expanded the team over the last year and opening a second office here in Manchester. While our main home is in Glasgow, we are delighted to have settled at Gilbanks, 11 York Street.
How important is finding a workspace that reflects your company image?
Essential! We want our clients to feel that their brands, their technology and their reputation are in safe hands, so the appearance of our office needs to reflect the care and attention to detail we put into our work.
Collaboration is crucial in our industry and having a space that allows us to engage with the community, whilst still affording us and our clients privacy, is essential.
Our work can be extremely demanding, so our work environment has to be positive for our staff’s mental well-being. We spend so much of our lives at the office, it’s important for it to be an inviting place. 11 York Street has a very calm, natural feel and appearance, with extremely helpful and dedicated staff. It ticks all our boxes!
What were your biggest pain points with other office providers?
Scintilla serves a diverse clientele that thrives at the forefront of technology and innovation. These clients are based in various locations, so having a central hub with excellent transport links was key in ensuring we remain easily accessible to them, no matter where they’re based.
Also, due to the nature of our work, we needed a workspace that facilitated team collaboration, but also offered confidential spaces for privacy when working with clients.
Many other Manchester providers were offering similar spaces and facilities, however, they either weren’t centrally located or didn’t have the privacy we would need on a daily basis.
What initially attracted you to Gilbanks at 11 York Street?
Despite this being our first Manchester office, we are very well-connected in the city and Gilbanks was recommended to us by many of those contacts. So we just had to see it!
I think the unique location and style, along with their ‘client-first’ approach was very attractive. Meeting with Managing Director Alex Duckett before signing effectively sealed the deal as he definitely has a sense of what ‘top-class’ service provision means. That filters down from him, through his fantastic reception team, such as Kayleigh and Megan, through to us and to our clients.
What would you say makes Gilbanks stand out from the other serviced office providers?
An implicit understanding of a workplace that’s not only for us as a company of employees but for us as a service provider. We work in a very modern, technical industry and, as such, needed a location that reflected that.
For all the reasons explained above we chose Gilbanks, and it was an easy decision in the end. It’s difficult nowadays to say that an offering in the property market is ‘unique’ without it also being ‘overboard’ or ‘gimmicky’, however, Alex and his team have certainly excelled in finding the right blend of work and hospitality.
