A few years ago we worked on a "future of gas stations" project for a major oil company. One of our forecasts was that gas stations would offer business center services (Internet access, printers, office space, etc.) to motorists.
The client didn't agree.
So as you can imagine, I was pleased to see that Shell Oil (not the oil company we worked with) is starting a business center pilot project in Europe. They are working with business center leader Regus to open business centers at several of their gas stations. The first is open outside of Paris.
The centers are designed to the meet the needs of mobile workers and will provide pretty much all the services one would expect from a business center.
Regus does a nice job explaining the project on their blog.
I'm curious to see how this pilot goes. When we looked at this the driver (bad pun intended) was the growing number of people using their vehicles as mobile offices. This is a large and growing group that need support beyond what they can carry.
I think that this is a value added service by SHELL to their customers. I think their service such as printing will cost even more compared to basic rates.
Posted by: coal seam gas australia | March 11, 2012 at 11:30 PM
I wonder how many small business owners will simply access the wi-fi signal by sitting in their cars in the parking lot?
Posted by: twitter.com/mwrogers | January 27, 2012 at 10:51 AM