IWG, Conjoinix ink franchise deal for 18 flexible workspace centres

Flexible workspace and coworking firm IWG has signed one of its largest franchise deals with Conjoinix, a real estate leasing and coworking company, for 18 centres across Delhi-NCR, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, and Gujarat. “The partnership with Conjoinix will enable us to continue expanding IWG’s brand presence across key business markets,” said Harsh Lambah, country manager, India, and vice president sales, South Asia, at IWG. Partnerships with franchise partners is in line with IWG’s approach to scale up. In July, it had signed a deal with Jaipur Bulls for eight centres in Rajasthan and another one with HAND Group in Punjab for four centres. The deal with Conjoinix takes the number of IWG centres in the country to 130 locations across 25 cities. Going forward, IWG plans to tie up with developers from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal to join as franchise partners. Demand for flexible, local office spaces is on the rise as firms of all sizes embrace hybrid work patterns in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. “Our data shows a steady 12% month-on-month increase in office and co-working visits since the second wave of the pandemic ended and has been very prominent across our locations in tier II and III cities,” Lambah said. “We expect this trend to continue increasing as we move into Q4.” There is increased demand from customers seeking professional workspaces that can be scaled up and down as needed, while also offering the flexibility of booking meeting rooms, or co-working spaces by the hour or day, depending on their needs, he said. Neeraj Bansal, director at Conjoinix, said, “We anticipate a significant increase in demand for flexible co-working spaces across the Indian market as companies lean towards a more employee-centric approach. For us, a partnership with IWG was the logical step towards meeting this demand.” IWG added a million new customers to its global network and signed a record contract with NTT, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation. As per Colliers International, flexible workspace operators are likely to lease about three million square feet of space across top six Indian cities in 2021.