Co-working segment set to grow faster post Covid, claim players

Post lockdown there has been a substantial increase in new leads which the industry has witnessed, especially in last one month, says Tanisha Batra, MD, Worknest Business Centre. “We have closed a couple of tenants also over the past one month and those have been long term leases only, not short term”, said Batra.

Speaking at Realty Webseries, a Realty & More and ICCPL initiative, Ankur Bhatiani, Director, Urbania Spaces said that the market is quite good and people are very open. Bhatiani added that post lockdown there are companies which are either upscaling or downsizing their workforce. “So for them co-working or co-owning a space is a very good option where they can customise things according to their needs”, said Bhatiani.

The topic of discussion at the sixth edition of Realty Webseries was ‘Co-working Dynamics post Covid 19’.

Another panellist at the event, Oshika Lumb, Co-founder, FindMyCoWork.com said earlier there was a good demand for hot desk and people were not very rigid about private cabin. “But yes, post the Covid crisis I see a lot of people and companies are going for more private cabins, more cubicles sort of a culture. So yes there has been a shift in the same”, said Lumb.

Vineet Anand, Director – Office Services NCR, Colliers International, said every occupier is today looking for flexibility. He said occupiers need flexibility to expand in the same place when the business is good and contract space when the business is not so good, break options in the lease deed, may be a opex friendly model than a capex heavy model. “So I think that is something which is the common voice of occupiers today”, added Anand.

On asking on downsizing and salary cuts by companies, Pueet Chandra, Co-founder & Director, Skootr said that this particular market operates in an absolutely different manner, which is very relative. Elaborating further, Chandra said, “Big in our terms would be a lakh square feet, but for a client like Google, American Express who are occupying millions of square feet of space, even if they reduce from a couple of their million to a million square feet, for them they are cutting down the cost, but they are still a big business for a managed office space”.

Vikas Lakhani, Co-founder, InstaOffice said the recent lay-offs and cost cutting are mostly reactionary and as people get back with business as usual and have more and more data, better visibility on how economy or demand is shaping, they will start taking more informed decisions. “So this is a great time for co-working, flexible office space or managed office space providers, wherein we will become an integral part of the workspace strategy”, said Lakhani.

Prashant Sharma, Founder, Next57 Coworking which operates in Tier II cities, informed about the trends in the smaller cities. Sharma said customers are right now evaluating how they can cut down on costs. “I think in a couple of week we will get a better clarity on what is the scenario in Tier II cities, but everybody is looking to cut down on their costs. That is what is pretty clear”, said Sharma.

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