在家工作及其投資含意 Home office and its investment implications

由於新冠狀病毒流行, 節省成本, 增加企業管理彈性等原因, 目前在家工作開始逐漸流行。

近期例子是微軟公司允許員工部份時間或全部時間在家工作, 一些工作,例如程式編寫員,客戶服務員, 接通了互聯網後, 連接到公司伺服器及公司雲辦公室和透過在線聯絡客戶, 理論上是和返公司工作性質沒有太大分別。

對公司的好處是能節省部份辦公室支出,增加企業管理彈性; 對員工好處是讓他們節省返工來回時間, 車費和可以照顧年幼家庭兒童。

在家工作對股票投資有什麼含意?

1. 企業容許後勤和生產員工在家工作, 意味著公司可以減少租用寫字樓樓面面積, 例如以前需要租用3,000呎面積, 企業容許部份員工在家工作後, 只需租用可能是一半面積例如1,500呎, 保留總裁辦公室, 會議及會客室, 產品展覽廳便可以, 可以省卻租讓大部份員工辨公的地方。這個轉變, 對一些 以寫字樓辦公室出租為主的地產收租股,房地產基金不是太有利的。

2. 由於企業容許部份員工在家工作後,所產生企業資訊,訊息通訊, 產品和服務仍然會有所增加, 所以一些雲端會議通訊軟件和服務如ZOOM, Microsoft Teams 有所增加;雲端辨公室, 數據使用量將會上升, 迷你倉庫位置放置公司產品,重要文件如合約,公司重要文件需求仍在,即迷你倉庫, 雲端辨公室軟件, 數據中心將會是在家工作開始逐漸流行而受惠的行業。

為了順應這個在家工作潮流, 在2019年12月買了少量數據中心股票, 2020年3月買了少量微軟公司股票, 2020年7月買了另一隻數據中心股票。

Home office becomes popular since the outbreak of CONVID 19 virus, cost saving and increase enterprises management flexibility.

Recent example like Microsoft Corporation allows part of her employees to work at home part of their time or even work full time at home. Some works like programmers, customer service operators can perform their work through internet, company servers, cloud office and indifferent to their working in offices.

It brings several advantages to the enterprises such as save part of office rental cost and increase enterprises management flexibility. The employees can be benefited at the same time as they can save time and money in their travelling time and can have more time to take care of their babies at home.

What are the shares investment implications of home office working concept?

1. Since part of employees are allowed to work at home, lesser office sapces need to rent. This can save part of rental cost. For instance, a company with 3,000 sqaure feet before may now cut half of the area to 1,500 sqaure feet. The company may remain to rent the office spaces just for some vital functions like CEO office, meeting and customers meeting room and product demo show room. It saves cost as it no need to rent spaces for employees to work there. This trend will have a negative effects on rental income companies and REITs whom are relied on letting business offices for rental income.

2. Meanwhile, company's information, communication, products and services are still increasing. Therefore some communication apps like ZOOM, Microsoft Teams have just increased in their usage. Data usage and warehouse spaces may increase to store important documents like contracts and products. Mini-storage warehouse, cloud office computing and data centers are the industries that can get benefits from the home working trend.

to cope with this trend, I purchased a few shares of Microsoft Corporation and data centers shares since December 2019.