According to Ramesh Nair, CEO & Country Head, JLL India, co-working is a disruptive business model that is redefining how we look at office space today. The year 2016-17 has seen a massive spike in the growth of the co-working industry and as it evolves further, we will witness an era of flexible office spaces with easily accessible, affordable, on demand workspaces. With office rental costs continuing to rise across India’s business districts, the total space leased by co-working operators in the top cities could potentially stand at 7– 9 million sqft. by 2020. This presents a huge opportunity in the commercial office spaces with modern amenities such as virtual offices, meeting rooms, IP-based telephony, receptionist, and office service staff amongst others.
Companies today want flexibility and complete serviceability in business. The Plug-&-Play set-up allows businesses to readily move in without paying any entry or exit
Nakul Mathur, MD, Avanta
Advantage Avanta
Avanta, one of the most promising business centre services provider in the Delhi-NCR region, offers best-in-class, fully furnished, high-end business centers and office space solutions. Working on a policy of assisting an organization ‘Beyond the Four Walls’ that supersedes the physical provision of space and infrastructure, it provides fully unbranded and customizable office spaces at premium locations in Delhi-NCR with utilities, maintenance and infrastructure completely taken care of in the most transparent, cost-effective and efficient manner.”
Says Nakul Mathur, MD, Avanta, “Companies today want flexibility and complete serviceability in business. The Plug-&-Play set-up allows businesses to readily move in without paying any entry or exit. Avanta’s serviced set-ups provide complete professional, modern and fully-serviced high-end office spaces equipped with modernistic furniture that can be customized and restructured as per client’s requirements, and an ambience designed to boost productivity and efficiency. Clients can restructure their operations to allow their individuality to be reflected fully, and not worry about heavy capital investments in buying a space and allied services. However, co-working facility is a much-used term these days to describe anything from a threadbare studio to a roof and a beanbag.”
Smart Move
Smartworks, provider of serviced office spaces, offers tech-rich serviced office spaces ranging from private offices to shared and virtual offices, with premises totalling 4,50,000 sqft, and a capacity of over 6,000 people. It’s 10 centres are present in seven cities, namely Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon, Kolkata, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Pune. It plans to have at least 3 million sqft of serviced office space across 15 centres in tier-1 cities and over 15 centres in tier-2 cities, over the next three years.
Since workspaces would require to be a lot more collaborative and community-driven, the facilities, infrastructure, office design and layout, lighting, furniture, etc must support such a vast working structure. Says Neetish Sarda, Founder, Smartworks, “Facility management is glittering up the corporate real estate by transforming the office spaces with a technology-rich environment, breakout areas, a strong corporate identity, and fully-equipped meeting rooms. Employees want more freedom, agility and a sense of community in the workspace, which has a significant impact on the overall productivity of the organization.”
A lot of importance is being accorded to common areas such as gaming zones, learning centres, labs, cafeterias and breakout areas within the office premises. Adds Harsh Binani, co-Founder, Smartworks, “The core concept is to build an office that is easy to set up, fully customizable and future ready. The aim is to build serviced and customizable offices wherein a company could thrive on qualitative networking opportunities and expand itself while shaping the office as per its culture and ecosystem.”
New Age Awfis
“The office workplace today is witnessing a rapid change led by shrinking densities as technology is reducing footprints of the work-desk. The workplace transformation has begun in earnest and will see the biggest changes in the next 5-7 years due to factors like changing lifestyles of individuals, technology progressions, increase in intra – city commute time, and health and well-being taking centre stage. With the real estate market in India revamping, there will also be a driving demand for office spaces focused on flexible leasing terms. The idea of co-working has been grasped not only by start-ups and small working groups, but also by mid and large sized corporates which offers them a well-integrated and synergised environment,“ says Amit Ramani, CEO & Founder, Awfis Space Solutions.
Facility management is glittering up the corporate real estate by transforming office spaces with a technology-rich environment, breakout areas, a strong corporate identity, and fully-equipped meeting rooms
Neetish Sarda, Founder, Smartworks
Awfis Space Solutions has opened its first community workplace in Pune at Baner. The brand-new workspace has a capacity of 600 seats. The company has signed up a new centre at Viman Nagar and is exploring opportunities at Bund Garden, Magarpatta, to name a few. It also plans to enter tier II markets in the next few months. With plush interiors and plethora of services, Awfis aims to provide holistic work experience, with ready to use, plug & play, office spaces, embedded with the latest technology solutions for flexible and ‘Just in Time’ space utilization. The company has created proprietary Grade-A, inspirational community work spaces with 9500+ desks, across 25 centers in 8 metro cities, and aims to ramp this up to 35000+ seats across 100+ Pro-working Centres in the next 18 months.
The core concept is to build an office that is easy to set up, fully customizable and future ready., and wherein a company could expand itself while shaping the office as per its culture and ecosystem
Harsh Binani, co-Founder, Smartworks
Shared serviced workspaces continue to ride a crest in the commercial real estate market and could spread beyond the scale of what merely is referred to as co-working space. Total leasing volume of co-working spaces in India which was 1.2 million sqft in 2016, is estimated to be around 10 million sqft by 2020, with close to 5,000 start-ups in the country eyeing flexible serviced office spaces, and this number is estimated to rise to around 12,000 by 2020.
Says Amit Ramani, “RE (Real Estate) today has become REEE - engagement, enablement and enrichment. To connect with millennials, we deliver workplace as a service. Awfis acts as a solution provider to the RE sector; the availability of choice being provided will not allow businesses to be disrupted.”
The office workplace is witnessing a rapid change led by shrinking densities as technology is reducing footprints of the work-desk. The transformation has begun in earnest and will see the biggest changes in the next 5-7 years
Amit Ramani, CEO & Founder, Awfis Space Solutions
Workspaces are looking at technology as an enabler, proving flexibility to end-users and creating experiences for millennials through activity based settings. With just in time booking solutions, there is no place for a dispute between locking periods and security deposits. Changing the paradigm from a square feet to a seat, workspaces today are solution providers for most developers.
