Skootr Desk
Managed office spaces and Co-working for Enterprises is the fastest growing real estate segment in the country today. India is becoming a hub for serviced office spaces, with international as well as local companies opening up flexible office spaces in metropolitan areas as well as small cities across the country.
The demand for flexible office spaces is growing faster in Asia Pacific than anywhere else in the world, with flexible floor space growing at 35.7% per year in India, compared to 25.7 and 21.6% in the United States and United Kingdom respectively.
It is also estimated that India will receive $400 million in investment for co-working spaces by 2018, with over 13 million people working out of them by 2020. And in 2017 alone, co-working spaces were expected to double, according to a JLL report.
Co-working for Enterprises – A revolution
According to a study by Cushman & Wakefield, the stock for co-working spaces crosses 8 million square feet in the top 8 cities for co-working across India. Though there are fewer than 100 branded co-working spaces, this number is expected to quadruple over three years. Shared spaces will expand from 150 to 500 centres by 2020.
India’s demand for flexible working spaces will grow in years to come with large businesses such as Skootr setting to expand base in the country. Moreover, corporates are also joining co-working spaces as they offer more conveniences at a much lower budget.
Top cities for Flexible Office Spaces
Millennial and start-up culture has further bolstered the need for co-working spaces, with youngsters forging their own timings and rules – an aspect that flexible working spaces more than account for.
By 2020, India will have the youngest workforce in the world, with the average age of 29. The number of people working as freelancers and consultants is also increasing every day. Moreover, the nature of jobs is also changing, with people opting for the kind of flexibility that is central to the co-working space philosophy.
In India, some of the cities with the largest flexible work spaces are:
Bengaluru – Bengaluru captures 32% of the total flexible workspace stock at 2.6 million. Areas like Whitefield and Ashok Nagar are hotbeds for co-sharing offices, and offer projected savings of at least Rs 2,000 monthly.
Mumbai – While the pricing varies by locality and the deposit for rented spaces is much higher than other cities, Mumbai still accounts for 25% of the total flexible office space. It also offers the highest business potential, of people over 1 million opting for co-working spaces in Mumbai alone.
Delhi NCR – The Delhi NCR region accumulates 17%. Moreover, here you save about 60-65% on the fixed cost when you opt for a co-working space.
Hyderabad – Hyderabad’s competitive real estate market coupled with the high tech entrepreneurial culture has led to a rise in the demand for co-working spaces, especially along Hyderabad’s IT corridor. 11% of the co-working spaces in the country can be found here, but the number is bound to increase.
Pune – Pune has 8% of the total flexible working space across the country, and is an innovation and start-up hub deemed to see more co-working spaces in the near future.
Emerging cities for co-working
Small towns are not far behind when it comes to flexible office spaces. More people than ever are shifting to urban and semi-urban spaces, and start-up culture has begun to permeate all the way through.
It is much easier to find technology partners, like-minded and enthusiastic people to work with at co-working spaces – which is why tier-2 cities are following today’s co-working culture as well. Cities like Indore, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad Jaipur, Kota, Jabalpur, Surat are now becoming a hotbed for emerging flexible office space opportunities.
Flexible offices are also expected to expand into the outskirts of tier-1 cities in the years to come.
Why flexible and managed offices works
All types of businesses, ranging from SMEs (small and medium enterprises) to large enterprises as well as self-employed individuals like freelancers and entrepreneurs are opting for flexible office spaces. Alongside cheaper lease rates, co-working offices provide more flexibility to upscale or downscale, and offer amenities such as administrative and technical support. These are the features that all these business entities and professionals appreciate and leverage to work better.
Co-working spaces are built as a plug-and-play design and have the kind of infrastructure and modern facilities ideal for today’s millennials. They provide more opportunities to build networks, meet people across industries & collaborate and flexible to team expansions, as compared to a traditional workspace.
The graph for flexible co-working spaces is only going to go one direction: Up. Co-working will soon be the new normal — are you ready for the revolution?
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