Jesse Bagley’s been in OC’s design-build industry for a quarter century, but he’s good with few knowing his name.
His recently rebranded company is a different story.
The West Coast-focused office furniture seller, previously known as Interior Office Solutions Inc., is on track for $110 million in sales this year under a new name it rolled out in January, PeopleSpace.
Thanks in part to an investment from Holland, Mich.-based furniture maker Haworth Inc., Bagley’s aim is to boost the Irvine-based company’s sales to $200 million in the next five years.
The new moniker comes as the company’s shifted its emphasis from a core furniture sales to providing design services based around how people use the areas they inhabit during the workday.
“We’re not selling workstations; space matters—we’re selling a service,” Bagley said.
Creative Juice
Chief Executive Bagley co-founded IOS with Brian Airth, chief business development officer, in 2000. Both are co-owners.
The company wants to be known in a purchasing space that tends to the prosaic: how often does a company think about the placement of its desks and chairs—even walls, or whether to have such things at all.
With the well-underway creative office trend, among other work, the answer is “more often.”
Creative offices and Bagley’s business coalesce under the wider “design psychology” movement—more prominent of late as more firms focus on lifestyle for workers, clients and customers not just the lifecycles of ergonomic chairs and whether the carpet looks a little worn.
The company’s offerings include a custom architectural elements design and manufacturing studio, an architectural interior and demountable wall specialty subcontractor, and a custom furniture manufacturing and design studio, along with core furniture sales.
The rising role of creative offices has been a boost to PeopleSpace’s business, although it has caused some confusion—there’s also a coworking company based in Irvine that operates under the same name. The two aren’t related.
Culture
“Our customers understand [workplace] culture is important,” Bagley told the Business Journal at a recent sit-down in his Irvine offices near John Wayne Airport. “We’re focusing our efforts on people who care.”
Clients have included Irvine Co., the area’s dominant real estate company; wireless infrastructure firm Mobilitie in Newport Beach; SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union, which recently announced plans to build new headquarters in Tustin; Fullerton College; the Aliso Viejo headquarters of Pacifica Hotels; and the city of Newport Beach.
PeopleSpace is its own customer. The company’s 17,000-square-foot headquarters near the Costa Mesa (55) Freeway and MacArthur Boulevard, which Bagley bought in 2006, was itself being remodeled during the interview—a stairway in a hard hat area was still missing a bannister.
The company employs 150; it also has offices in L.A., Seattle, and Portland; other facilities in Cypress and near Seattle.
Haworth Boost
Growth plans are in the works, thanks in large part to Haworth, which last December took a minority stake in the company.
Haworth makes the furniture Bagley sells. “It’s the first time they’ve done this,” Bagley said of its partner, which does about $2 billion in sales a year. His company has been a Haworth-only dealer since 2006; a few employees of Haworth moved over to PeopleSpace after the deal was struck.
Office furniture dealers are often linked exclusively to a single manufacturer. PeopleSpace competitors, for instance, sell brands like Steelcase, Herman Miller, and Knoll.
Newport Beach’s Systems Source Inc.—one of the largest woman-owned contract interior firms in the country with sales approaching $200 million—has a long partnership with Pennsylvania-based furniture designer and manufacturer Knoll (NYSE: KNL).
The legacy approach—similar to carmakers and auto dealers—can in the case of office furniture, mean companies must interact with several separate sales teams, if they want products from different vendors.
To counter that problem, PeopleSpace said it aims to offer “project teams to streamline … planning, design and purchasing.”
