COWORKING GROWTH AND NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES
The discussion at the 3rd Realty+ Coworking Summit saw the presence of leading coworking organizations. Sidharth Dhawan, Regional Head, Agile Real Estate – APAC, CBRE Asia Pacific leading the conversation on growing and scaling up of a coworking business stated, “Globally, the increasing number of unicorn start-ups are driving the growth of coworking space market as they are opting for a flex space spaces in lieu of high cost private offices.” Parul Thakur, Senior Vice President, CoWrks said, “2021 was a year of landmark changes as people realised the importance of wellness and workspace to attract talent, Thus, agile workspaces have been much in demand especially for the last one year.” Dharam Mehta, Head Digital Products, WeWork India added, “Flexibility, adaptability, taking a human-centric approach and figuring out customer needs are the most important aspects to scale up a coworking model in the present scenario.” Azaan Feroz Sait, Founder and Chief Happiness Officer, The Hubsharing his learning said, “In the last two years we have pivoted a lot of our real estate team into digital communities reaching to about 13 million people in India in a month. thereby creating new revenue streams.”Robin Chabbra, Founder & CEO, Dextrus was of the view that in recent times there has been a major focus on re-evaluating stakeholder relationships. “A very honest conversation whether it is with the landlords or with the clients and being flexible to space design and pricing as per the individual client requirement have helped the Coworking business.” Yash Shah, Founder, The Address concurred, “We have seen a radical shift in last 18 months from commercial real estate hitting the lowest ebb to recovering swiftly. What worked for co-working and managed office players is the rising demand in tier-2 cities as more office goers have migrated back to their hometowns and are working remotely.” SECTOR GROWTH FORECASTS Real estate is undergoing a fundamental business model redesign enabled by customizable and scalable access to space, amenities and services. Azaan Feroz Sait elaborated, “With the lingering uncertainty given the current situation, people are realising the benefits of accessing real-estateas- a-service. We can see a very rapid transition towards hybrid work approach. Accessing spaces through leases for a limited period of time with restrictions on both the landlord and client is not something we will go back to.” Yash Shah said, “Our market niche is as a tech enabled tier 2 co-working or a managed office space player. This is where we have experienced major growth in past two years. Going forward, cities like Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Hyderabad will present huge growth opportunities for coworking companies.” Parul Thakur sharing similar sentiments added, “We plan to enter cities such as Chandigarh, Jaipur, Indore and Ahmedabad with smallformat facilities.” Dharam Mehta, shared, “More large enterprises have shifted toflexible workspaces in past one year. Moreover, the geographic spread of coworking spaces is also growing. WeWork is looking to grow its portfolio by 35 percent in 2022.” Robin Chhabra said, “The absorption of flex spaces accelerated in the 2 years of Covid. This shall continue in metro as well as nonmetro cities, given that flexibility of space and service will be the key drivers in the decision making process for office spaces.” Sidharth Dhawan summarized the discussion saying, “Indeed, over the last one and a half year the growth has been quite a lot for the flex space segment with newer business models emerging. Flexibility, technology services and the demand for hybrid offices are the growth drivers and apart from the untapped demand in Tier-1 cities, huge growth opportunities lie in India’s tier-2 cities. Furthermore, metaverse might just offer yet another area of expansion.”
Tags : Sidharth Dhawan Regional Head Agile Real Estate – APAC CBRE Asia Pacific Parul Thakur Senior Vice President CoWrks Yash Shah Founder The Address Azaan Feroz Sait Founder and Chief Happiness Officer The Hubsharing Dharam Mehta Head Digital Products WeWork India