Managed office space provider Smartworks is planning to invest Rs 250 crore on 2.5 million sq ft of space in 2021 and ensure that its total footprint pan India touches 7 million sq ft. It intends expanding to cities such as Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Delhi-NCR, the company’s founder Neetish Sarda told Moneycontrol.

“During the pandemic we signed up close to 4 mn sq ft. We are now looking at adding another 2.5 mn sq ft pan in cities such as Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Delhi-NCR to ensure that our footprint touches 7 mn sq ft by the end of this year,” he said.

The company is scouting for space in both Noida and Gurgaon and hopes to add 700,000-800,000 sq ft in Delhi NCR. “We are in advanced stages,” he said, adding Noida alone will account for almost 60 percent of the total 700,000 sq ft.

The company recently leased 2.5 lakh sq ft of space in Hyderabad’s Aurobindo Galaxy, taking its total operational space in the city to 4 lakh sq ft.

“In both Hyderabad and Bengaluru, we are considering adding a million sq ft each. We will also be finalising co-working spaces in Tier 2 cities such as Jaipur and Coimbatore. These would be smaller centres of 20,000 sq ft,” he said.

“There is a lot of demand for managed office space for the last few months. We have seen double-digit growth in leasing across the nine cities where we are present,” he said, adding the majority of their clients are enterprises.

Of late, the company has witnessed a rise in demand for seat lock-ins rather than total space take up. “As more employees return to work, companies are exploring co-working options rather than conventional office space to save on capex. Also, rather than locking into floors, they take up seats across multiple locations depending on the demand in that area,” he explains.

Citing an example, he said that – if a company had taken 500 seats across Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR, it would sign up on a flexible model that allowed it to reduce or increase the number of seats in a location depending on demand.

“This gives them the flexibility to also expand a particular business division. For example, it may decide to increase space for e-commerce and downsize logistics needs depending on demand. People are looking at flexibility and that is where we are seeing traction,” he said.

As for future plans, the company is planning to eventually invest in other segments such as proptech, facility management, warehousing and other real estate verticals, he said.

Founded in April 2016, Smartworks Coworking Spaces Pvt Ltd currently has 31 co-working centres, comprising about 60,000 seats and 40 lakh sq ft area, across nine cities.

Smartworks has operations in Delhi, Noida, Gurugram, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune. It mostly focuses on large corporates and its clients on an average take 250-300 seats.

Smartworks charges on an average Rs 10,000 per seat, with per-seat fee ranging from Rs 6,000 to Rs 30,000, depending on the location.

Flexible workspace operators are likely to lease about 3 million square feet of space across the top six Indian cities in 2021, as operators focus on signing large enterprise-level deals and cut down on speculative centres, Colliers has said.
During 2020, flexible workspace operators leased about 2.9 million square feet of space led by technology, and banking and financial services (BFSI) enterprises.

Despite large workforces working from home, as of March 2021, top flexible workspace operators across the top six cities have about 65 percent of their seats already leased, signalling continued confidence in managed workplaces.

As corporate occupiers continue to be uncertain about long-term office leasing plans in 2021 and 2022 and are still re-assessing their office space needs, they are exploring leasing desks in flexible workspaces to avoid long-term capital expenditures, and to get more flexibility on their lease terms, it said.

The total flexible workspace stock in the top six Indian cities is almost 30 million sq feet, equivalent to 4.3 percent of total Grade A and B commercial office stock.

Bengaluru leads the tally with a 37 percent share of the total flexible workspace portfolio, followed by Delhi- NCR and Mumbai, with 18 percent and 14 percent share, respectively. By 2022, flexible workspace stock is likely to account for 5.4 percent of the total office portfolio, led by demand for well-located, high quality and efficient flexible workspaces, it said.

As we step into 2021, the uncertainties of last year have not left us entirely. With the world slowly opening up, businesses are coming to terms with managing a workforce that has worked from home for most of last year. The COVID-19 vaccination has been a good news and confidence booster. Even as offices limp back to normalcy what is mostly to be seen is how the workplace will adapt to the changes brought forward by a pandemic that continues to stay in the news.

Many surveys point towards the popularity of work from home culture. Employees are happy that they can now save on commute time. They also feel safe at the prospect of not having to take public transport. Workplaces, on their part, may have saved on rental costs. Organizations would also have curtailed overhead expenses, and the infrastructure costs of running a workspace would have been significantly less.

However, several months into work from home and the fatigue has set in – for both employees and the employer. Employees complain of blurring work-life boundaries, endless household distractions and the growing feeling of isolation. Many in the workforce will vouch for the need to get out of homes, meet people in a traditional office space and interact beyond video-conferencing. While there is an ongoing debate around work from home (WFH) vs work from the office, the answer isn’t straight. While WFH has worked for some, it failed for the others. The success of a job role primarily depends upon the nature of work. However, what is undebatable is that innovation occurs when colleagues get together face-to-face, collaborate, and pave the way for newer products and services.

As companies start to divest their real estate portfolios, one can clearly notice that the future will be about a distributed workforce and flexible office spaces. Flexible offices provide the agility companies are looking for in these uncertain times with options to scale up and down per requirements. Organizations can right size to a footprint and location that better suits their goals and vision. At the moment, companies are experimenting with various work models. While some plan to continue remote work till mid-2021, others have started recalling employees to offices in staggered groups. Meanwhile, some are looking for flex-offices to provide a ‘third’ workspace to employees.

The pandemic has accelerated the need for flexible, managed office spaces. Having lost too precious time, companies now only want to concentrate on their core competency and outsource non-core activities such as end-to-end management of workspaces to a fully serviced office space operator.

Managed office space providers allow maximum agility and the additional benefits of value-added services to clients. Large monolithic buildings will become a thing of the past as employees will congregate in open spaces. Key magnet locations, such as the headquarters and regional offices, will become smaller in size but will remain highly amenitized, keeping in mind the pre and post-COVID scenarios.

The shift to a hybrid model is inevitable, but will no longer be limited to providing laptops, comfortable workstations, vibrant offices to the workforce. Instead, it will be aligned with elevated needs and behaviours of the workforce. Office space providers have to change the way they have been managing the offices. By providing latest touchless tech upgrades in addition to configured spaces, sitting arrangements, reframing employee touchpoints, offering a vast array of amenities, such as coffee and snack bars, grocery shops, concierge services and commute facilities to the connecting points- will lead to creating a new office experience.

Hybrid work models truly come across as the hour’s need in the clamour of noise arising from choosing the best option. One where both work from home or instead work from anywhere is juxtaposed with the workplace atmosphere. Companies will have to rise to the occasion and provide employees with a safe workplace, one where seamless integration of human interaction and technology occurs, without any hindrances.

It’s a win-win situation for several reasons.

Head hunters can gain significantly from new and cost-effective talent acquisition opportunities that arise with opening up geographically distributed workplaces. Organizations with foresight can flush back those real estate costs into people programmes, engagement, and experiences, thereby directly reducing attrition rates.

As employers plan to bring back employees to offices, the focus will be upon safe and tech-enabled workspaces that provide a holistic experience. It is crucial to allow technology to be the backbone as the collaboration of tools is imperative to make remote working a hassle-free experience. One must not forget that a hybrid model can be successful only when backed by robust technology, seamless interface and security for team collaborations.

Smartworks, the home-grown shared office space provider, will invest up to Rs 100 crore in expanding its presence in the national capital region (NCR), its founder Neetish Sarda told ET.

The company is in the final stages of acquiring 5 lakh sq ft in NCR.

“We are seeing a lot of traction in Noida so more than 90% of our future inventory will come in Noida. Our existing building is almost fully occupied so we are on the lookout for fresh property. The new asset should be ready by October,” said Sarda.

According to a Knight Frank report, co-working operators took up spaces selectively across NCR in H2 2020.

From a 3% share in H1 2020’s total leasing, it increased to 12% in H2 2020.

Smartworks acquires the entire building and converts it into a coworking campus, unlike other coworking operators that usually acquire a floor or portions of a commercial building.

The company plans to have 3 million square feet of office space in NCR in three years.

“There is a lot of demand for shared space for the last few months. We have seen double-digit growth in leasing in nine cities we are present in. We expect this trend to continue and that is why we have aggressive plans for expansion,” said Sarda.

Co-working operators established office footprints in Delhi in locations such as Okhla and Defence Colony.

In Gurugram, it was Udyog Vihar, Qutub Plaza and Sector-45 that attracted coworking players.

According to a report by property consultant JLL, irrespective of several short-term disruptions and challenges, increased demand from large enterprises, will support the growth of the flex space market to more than 50 mn sq ft by 2023.

As economies across the world contemplate on the next best move to find their way out of Covid-19, office space providers are grappling with troubles of their own. The pandemic disrupted some of the best-laid plans of almost every industry vertical and one of the most severely affected was the commercial real estate sector. As per a study by Deloitte, 50% of CXOs reported a 25% disruption in both business and work during the peak of Covid-19 last year. Manufacturing and retail operations saw the biggest of disruptions as 85% of these were impacted due to their heavy dependency on factories and unmovable machinery.

The hybrid model finds greater acceptance. March to September of 2020 was evidence enough for companies, especially large enterprises, to resort to various workspace models that ranged from work-from-home (WFH) to work-near-home. Now, many are turning their attention towards the flexible workspace model. This has resulted in a ‘Hybrid Model’ where a company opts for a balance between working from office and working from home.

A new trend has emerged here, the ‘Hub and Spoke’ model—where the hub or the main office will continue to function as the ‘face’ or ‘brand’ and will be supported by the spokes— smaller office spaces spread across the cities, and located closer to employees.

Enterprises in the driver seat

Enterprises, in the current scenario, have a big say in workspace matters as we speak. One primary reason why corporates are focusing on the ‘hub and spoke’ and the flex space models is that they can avoid long-term contracts and fixed payments in terms of rentals. Enterprises are gradually realising the value of a flexible workspace model that can be customised, bespoke, and will save them huge costs.

Consumer-led workspace

If one entity an enterprise would listen to and comply with, it is the company’s united employee workforce. The future workspace will be led by the employee and neither by the realtor nor by the corporate. It will be a consumer-led workspace with flexible work and time at the core and other employee perks. Flexible office spaces fit the bill here, almost entirely.

Driving down the costs

A big concern that enterprises had was the high advances, fixed recurring payments, and long-term lease agreements that invariably bound them to the building owners and their rules. The pandemic has turned the tables, and corporates are eying managed office spaces in a big way!

Technology-enabled and supported

While we speak a lot about flexibility and consumer-led workspace, what makes this possible is technology. If the workspace model has to stay flexible, it has to have the support of technology in the form of high-speed and uninterrupted internet connectivity, interoperable and quality software that allows for remote collaboration, reliable virtual communication tools, and data monitoring and safety devices to name just a few.

End-to-end management

Enterprises are looking at different ways to utilise time and resources more productively. It is here that managed office space providers fit the bill and can add to the productivity of these enterprises. Flexible managed office spaces will see continued growth for the foreseeable future given the advantages gained on costs and flexibility.

The Covid-19 pandemic has just about changed the way businesses will continue to operate, and this more so relevant to the workspace sector; don’t expect things to be similar to the pre-COVID -19 days

Since the beginning of this decade, there has been some level of shift when it came to the way businesses perceived workspaces. Over the years, work-at-office gradually allowed for ‘work-from-home’ (WFH) as technology caught on and employee experience gained importance. Some companies (more so the IT and ITeS) began to implement the same in some form or the other with employees being permitted to work at home a few days a month.

Technology has slowly become an integral part of the workspace sector and now, continues to be indispensable. As we stand, ‘tech-enabled’ workspace seems to be the name of the game and promises to be the future of workspace sector.

What is a tech-enabled workspace?

A tech-enabled workspace is that which is supported by technology to a more morph into a more ‘flexible and connected’ workspace that can be location agnostic. It is an environment whose barriers are broken down to connect employees and information in a seamless and smooth manner such that the experience of the workspace is elevated and enhanced. What else can you ask for when you also have higher operational efficiencies and reduced costs?

Arguably, three major technologies – Automation, Mobility Solutions and, Artificial Intelligence (AI) – have played a key role in the major shift towards a tech-enabled workplace even as companies across the globe look to invest in these.

Some of the main features of tech-enabled workspace are – High-speed Wi-Fi connectivity, Smart office solutions, High-end security equipment and other devices connected via Internet-of-Things (IoT), cross-connected work devices, etc., not to mention the customized and slightly amplified work environment to appease the new-gen workforce.

Why tech-enabled workspaces?

The future of workplaces shall be focussed on activity-settings, that is, a tech integrated flexible workspace that delivers a curated experience while providing the required comfort to the employees. Imagine an employee comfortably seated on a bean bag not very far from the coffee machine with high-speed internet connectivity that will help attend a virtual meeting over a Zoom call or a Google Meet.

Safe and secure are two keywords ringing loud in the ears of corporates more so during the pandemic phase; it has become essential to provide a safe environment. The futuristic workplace will have all the required safety measures in place (Ex: Social Distancing in the present Covid times) while enabling employees to have complete access to all that is required to do their jobs. In-person meetings would give way to virtual meetings which are easier and cost-effective to conduct. Virtual meetings are here to stay and perhaps, might prove more efficient thanks in part to technology. As remote or virtual meetings gain prominence, technology will be upgraded to ensure these meetings are conducted in the best possible manner providing the best possible experience.

Tech-enabled workspaces will also help companies save on costs and improve operational efficiency. With the help of AI and IoT, tech-enabled workspaces will run ‘live’ and can be controlled as far as power and equipment usage is concerned. Imagine the lights switching off soon as the meeting is done or the monitors getting into ‘sleep mode’ soon as the employee leaves the desk. Smooth, isn’t it?

Perhaps, the most watched-out for aspect of tech-enabled workspace will be its experience. The mobile, non-siloed, and yet smooth experience of working and being part of the work place will be ushered in with the infusion of AI, IoT, Connectivity, and Mobility. One of the many value additions will be a mobile app that will help employees connect to one the company’s inter-campus shuttles, order coffee and even check if the cafeteria is vacant enough for seating.

Building a Competitive workspace

How do we build a competitive workspace? By building it different and by stretching that extra mile.

There is not doubt that post Covid-19 certain things will continue to remain the same – hygiene, safety and security at work place will take precedence over most other things.

Safety of employees will undoubtedly become paramount and as we speak, measures are being put in place to ensure the pandemic is curtailed as much as possible. Basic norms such as compulsory masks, social distancing, cleansing of hands and usage of disposables will continue to be a part of the hygiene and safety protocols in companies. This will not only ensure better safety and hygiene standards but will also show as to how serious companies are, in protecting their employees.

Workplaces must be secure. Period.

Measures such as biometrics and swipe cards will ensure only the right people enter the right places resulting in employee privacy and systems security. Tech-enabled toughened measures will ensure no intruders or unauthorised personnel have a freeway into the work premises. Data security along with employee security will continue to remain a top priority and a tech-enabled workspace promises better data security.

Future of workspace

What might be the functional model of the future workplace?

Hybrid.

It is true that shared working or co-working has been seeing a greater trajectory and will continue to boom even as the new generation of workforce comes into play. Growing interest from large and mid-sized enterprise will add a great push to the growth of co-working spaces.

The pandemic has forced companies to resort to ‘work-from-home’ or ‘work near home ‘Even as the pandemic begins to recede and business begins to get back to ‘normal’, the workplace model will see a definite shift and will evolve.

As per a JLL research report, 24% of the employees preferred to work exclusively in office whereas 75% preferred to have some level of access to office. So, its not all WFH or office, there is now, and there will be in the future, a demand for working from office.

Based on employee / company need, distance to office, costs of transport and flexibility on timings the future of workplace will be a hybrid model. A model that would suit the work styles and work timings of the employees. While it is true that many companies found higher levels of productivity through WFH during the pandemic, the JJL survey does state that over time many employees wish to be ‘back-at-office’ for a more collaborative, in-person and out of home experience.

In the future, the office will become a central hub of sorts for employees to base their work out of but will also give way to co-working spaces and WFH options making it more employee centric than company centric. As Flore Pradere, research director with JLL opines, ‘’The hybrid workplace of the future will have to be more human than ever before to support the diverse, changing needs and work styles of employees.’’

About a decade or so ago, a new model of office work disrupted the workspace industry. Co-working gradually found its footing and has never looked back, that is, until now. COVID-19 has brought about an unprecedented set of changes to the world of business and the workspace sector was among the very first to get affected, severely.

As vaccines come into effect and things begin to get better, workspace sector will be looking at a gradual ascent. While corporates continue to swear by the work-from-home (WFH) model, employees are finding it difficult to continue. This could prove counter-productive.

Co-working finds itself at crossroads. Given the adversity, or rather, the opportunity, this new-age workspace model is set to undergo definitive changes to accommodate various needs of office goers, freelancers, consultants and entrepreneurs.

So, what modifications will co-working undergo to survive and surge ahead?

The following are some trends that will define co-working for the coming year:

Office decentralization

Big corporates have multi-storied offices hosting thousands of employees. Now, this will change. High emphasis on employee safety means that offices may no longer allow for congregation of big crowds at one place. This will pave way for decentralization of office spaces.

The ‘hub-and-spoke model’ will come into effect wherein a large corporate office will have a ‘central office’ and a set of smaller or ‘satellite offices’ spread across different parts of the city, or even across cities. The office of the future will be a network of smaller, flexible and safety-driven places that benefit both the employees and the company while saving on commutation time and increasing productivity.

Tech-enabled workspaces

The pandemic has changed the dynamics of the regular working model making it imperative for corporates to think beyond the ‘office’. Leveraging next gen-office technology and collaboration tools to deliver a personalized and seamless office experience for people to work effectively will become a priority. A tech-enabled workspace is one that seamlessly knits all workspaces: the office, co-working and WFH together. Technologies such as automation, mobility, artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet-of-Things (IoT) will ensure that employees are connected, albeit not in person, but virtually.

Flexible and hybrid space

The ‘new normal’ in workspace sector will be defined by what the occupants prefer, than by what the co-working space prefers. Co-working spaces will need to be flexible in terms of both space and timings; occupants will have the upper hand to demand for a safe and tech-enabled workspace while paying only for the number of hours they use the space.

Realtors or landlords who own big spaces will be forced to go hybrid. They will need to modify their spaces. For example, an erstwhile 10-storied office space accommodating just two large companies might well be modified to accommodate several smaller companies even as the existing occupants, re-size and go ‘hub-and-spoke’.

Corporates to co-working

The last six months were time enough for big corporates to understand the sheer value of leasing out smaller spaces that come with all amenities and facilities taken care of. Co-working model, earlier brushed under the carpet by the biggies, is now viewed as a ‘to-the-rescue’ option. Co-working spaces with slight modifications should be an enticing option for corporate—a ready-to-occupy plug-and-play model that will end up saving on costs and efforts.

Wellness and safety

If there is one aspect no workspace model should compromise on, it is safety and wellness. Employee safety will top the charts and wellness will soon become a priority. From ensuring comfort through great workspace design to cleaner air and lesser pollution both within and around workspaces, safety and wellness measures will become more evident.

Market consolidation

As corporates and employees look for flexible work options, workspace aggregators will find themselves getting a big push. Aggregators will play a key role in helping access flexible, tech-enabled and cost-effective workspaces. Adding to this, big real estate players with deep pockets will look to invest or buy these aggregators to ensure that they do not lose out on the ‘new normal’. Another strategy will be to collaborate with or invest in co-working brands that are in need of money to expand.

In the coming year, co-working will undergo modifications to align itself with the ‘new normal’ of workspace sector. There will be more fluidity and customizations to the model that will allow co-working to position itself as a more viable option in the coming years.

As we move ahead in 2021 businesses will leverage technology to create more functional, efficient, sustainable and productive workspaces. Commercial developers will focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine Learning to render an advanced and protected work environment to employees.

If there is one thing that 2020 has taught us, then it is not to predict things. All our predictions went awry when a pandemic swept us off our feet and presented us with a scenario, which had have never been imagined by anyone. And yet here we are, but the important question that arises is how various workplaces will unfold in the future and will it be save to resume offices.

If there is one thing that can be said with certainty, then it is the technology usage will grow significantly in commercial real estate in the upcoming quarters. The unabashed march of technology and the myriad opportunities it presents every day goes to show that it is only going to progress from here. It is a no-brainer that technology allows an employee and an enterprise to be more productive. So what is in store for a futuristic workplace when it adopts technology automation? Will technology make the future workforce redundant, or will it make the workplace more productive? To these and many more questions, the answer is self-presenting.

A futuristic shared workplace will be a smart office that will optimise space and leverage technology to offer cutting-edge solutions to employees. This is where we will see people and processes converging with Artificial Intelligence (AI), Automation, and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Smart and secure spaces

A smart office is a workplace where technology allows people to work faster and better. It is dynamic and designed in a way that helps employees to collaborate, ideate, and innovate. The idea is to offer intelligent workplace solutions using automation. Imagine a secure access system that operates on cloud. Keys will become a thing of the past. As we enter the new normal, and workplaces get redesigned, technology will be the crucial driving enabler in offering flexible workspaces.

Energy management solutions

Automation also allows seamless operation of facilities at shared workspaces. The workplace of the future needs to be adaptable to these changes and a pandemic should not shatter its core. The infrastructure and the ever-evolving technology around it should stand the test of time.

Sustainable practices would mean leaving fewer energy footprints. A robust IoT would help detect faulty systems in the building, thereby saving time, energy and cost. Smart tech solutions will allow an organisation to zero in on wasteful energy expenditures. For instance, imagine the conference room’s lights switching off when not in use or a device using minimal energy and going into sleep mode.

Virtual Reality

Have you always thought of Virtual Reality (VR) in the context of gaming or other entertainment options? But VR is now being rigorously used by co-working spaces as they create virtual presentations of the workplace. VR-enabled solutions make visits of a prospective customer hassle-free. Visiting a physical office can be a thing of the past as facility tours can be organised using immersive VR experiences.

In an exclusive interaction with Business Standard, our Founder Neetish Sarda shared: Smartworks is looking to add another 3 million square feet to its existing footprint of 4 million square feet by the end of FY22. Several of these projects are already under discussion and we are seeing strong traction from large enterprises in the months to come.

Smartworks eyes aggressive growth on the back of growing demand for flexible office space

Smartworks Coworking Spaces, funded by Singapore based diversified conglomerate Keppel Corporation, has chalked out an aggressive growth plan to capitalise on the spurt in demand for flexible office space due to Covid-19.

The company is looking at organic and inorganic initiatives to double its seat capacity to 1,30,000 pan-India and clock a revenue of Rs 1,000 crore by FY 2022-23, said Neetish Sarda, founder of Smartworks.

Currently, it has 65,000 seats spread across 31 centres in nine cities,including the National Capital Region, Noida, Gurugram, Mumbai,Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai and Kolkata. The company recorded a revenue of Rs 250 crore plus and an unaudited EBIDTA of Rs25 crore in FY 2019-20.

“We have seen a spike in enquiries across India due to strong demand for flexible office spaces from clients in IT/ITES and BFSI. Talks with some of these companies for coworking space are at an advanced stage and is expected to get finalised by March 2021,” Sarda added.

Smartworks co-founder Harsh Binani believes India’s flex space market will witness M&A’s in the post-Covid-19 economy. Elaborating further, he said, “with mid-to-small players struggling to raise funds and facing viability challenges, financially strong flexible space operators like Smartworks will be open to acquisitions. The buyout of a small player could be an all-cash deal, while that of a large one could be a combination of cash and equity to the existing promoter.

“Real estate consultants claim the pandemic has accelerated the shift to flexible workspaces, with businesses of all sizes looking to manage cash-flows effectively by moving costs to a variable model. They feel businesses, in its new avatar, will be in a better position to tackle similar economic shocks in future and ensure business continuity.

Knight Frank India CMD Shishir Baijal said “Work from Home became the default business continuity process during the Covid-19 induced lockdown. While corporate India was quick to adapt to work from home, the benefits of working from an office far exceed mere cost-saving which includes collaboration, data safety and security, work-life balance etc. As we near the availability of a mass vaccine, we will see normality return to office space usage. Co-working spaces are expected to play a significant role in future office space demand emanating from the mid-sized and startup companies that are looking at reverting to working from an office.”

Keppel Land president (India) Ho Kiam Kheong said: “While we maintain prudence given the uncertainties surrounding the pandemic, India remains an exciting real estate market in the medium to long term with the economy poised to continue on its robust growth path on the back of the realignment of global supply chains, continued growth of the technology, entertainment & media and telecom sector, emergence of 5G, and increased urbanisation.”