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Eli Lilly Transformed Space Efficiency and Saved €3+ Million with Ronspot

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Pharmaceutical

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Cork, Ireland

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2,300+ Employees

€3+

Million Saved

2:1

Employee/Desk Ratio Achieved

400+

Hours Saved Doing Manual Analysis

The Challenge: When Success Becomes the Problem

When rapid growth meets limited space, most companies face an expensive choice: expand or restrict. Eli Lilly found a third option

Eli Lilly’s Cork office was intended to be a flagship office for the company-  a state of the art facility designed with a desk for every employee. But by 2023, success had created an unexpected challenge. The team had grown by 35%, with over 1900 employees. By 2025 this number had increased further with 2300 employees now calling Cork home.

With only 1030 desks available, even with hybrid working, every day brought the same uncertainty: Would there be a place to work when employees arrived?

“We were facing a choice no growing company wants to make,” explains the facilities team. “Either invest €3+ million annually in new real estate, or find a way to make our existing space work smarter.”

For employees, the daily reality was more personal. New joiners wondered if they’d have somewhere to sit near their team. Long-time employees felt the stress of uncertainty. Project teams struggled to coordinate in-person collaboration when no one knew who would be in the office.

“We didn’t need more space, we just needed a smarter way to use it.”

– Facility Manager, Eli Lilly

The Stakes: More Than Just Square Footage

Beyond the financial implications, Eli Lilly faced operational challenges that threatened their collaborative culture:

  • Employee experience: Staff were making unnecessary trips to the office, only to find no available workspace
  • Team coordination: Without visibility into colleagues’ schedules, meaningful collaboration happened by chance, not design
  • Resource waste: Some departmental zones sat half-empty while other areas experienced overcrowding
  • Operational inefficiency: Even catering partners struggled with unpredictable attendance, leading to significant food waste

The facility management team knew they needed more than a desk booking system—they needed a workplace transformation.

Problem solving

How Ronspot Delivered the Transformation

Benefit 1

Real-time desk visibility

Ronspot’s Solution

Employees could view live desk availability through Ronspot’s user-friendly mobile app before leaving home, eliminating wasted trips and arrival anxiety

Benefit 2

Flexible desk allocation

Ronspot’s Solution

Rather than maintaining fixed departmental zones that often sat half-empty, Ronspot enabled a fully bookable layout where all 1,030 desks became available to any employee, maximizing utilisation across the entire office

Benefit 3

Coordination tools

Ronspot’s Solution

The platform provided visibility into colleagues’ booking schedules, allowing teams to align their in-office days for purposeful collaboration rather than leaving it to chance

Benefit 4

Workplace Analytics

Ronspot’s Solution

Ronspot integrated with Lilly access control and HR systems to provide the most accurate view of workplace attendance and space usage, allowing for accurate decisions about day-to-day capacity management and demand planning for the future

Results

Ronspot’s Solution

€3+ million in avoided real estate costs by optimizing existing space instead of expanding

400+ hours of manual analysis time reclaimed through automated workplace insights

2:1 employee-to-desk ratio achieved without compromising employee satisfaction

Food waste reduced to just 5 surplus meals daily through accurate attendance forecasting

The Mechanics Behind the Success

Predictive booking patterns

The system’s analytics identified attendance and usage trends, helping Eli Lilly understand peak demand periods and optimize availability

Automated space management

Ronspot’s intelligent system prevented overbooking while ensuring maximum utilisation, enabling the dramatic shift from 1:1 to 2:1 employee-to-desk ratios

Integrated attendance insights

Real-time booking data was shared with operations partners, including catering service Sodexo, enabling accurate demand forecasting that reduced food waste from dozens of surplus meals to just 5 per day

Self-service convenience

Employees gained complete autonomy over their workspace planning, eliminating the 400+ hours of manual analysis and coordination that facilities teams previously managed

Why Ronspot

See how Ronspot can solve your specific parking challenges.

Visitor Bookings
Facility Teams

Efficiency savings and accurate data to inform future long term capacity planning. Eli Lilly can optimise their current property footprint and accurately plan their future requirements with Ronspot data

Employees

Ronspot’s intuitive employee app was easy to roll out and allow the company and employees to enjoy immediate benefits. Teams can plan their office days in advance, ensure commutes are worthwhile and collaboration is enhanced

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HR

Improved employee experience, removing points of friction on in office days. HR teams can accurately forecast team growth requirements and scenario plan return-to-office implications

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