As the call to work from the office grows louder and companies roll out hybrid work arrangements, flexible workspaces are witnessing a resurgence. This time, the demand from large enterprises and their desire for flexibility is driving how co-working and managed-office-space managed-office-space managed office space Unlike co-working spaces, which are ready to occupy and where employees of various companies work together, managed offices are customised, dedicated workspaces built and serviced for the client firms operate in India.
“The idea of flexibility is quickly spreading [from startups] to large organisations,” said a senior executive at a professional services firm working closely with the flexible-workspace sector, which includes both co-working and managed-office-space firms. They didn’t want to comment publicly on the matter.
Large enterprises want options to expand or contract leased space quickly and even the ability to lease multiple properties in different cities or different parts of the same city.
This change is one more significant event for the co-working industry that has been hurtling from one challenge to another. The flexible-workspace sector, considered a tech-backed disruption of a lucrative legacy industry, was once the apple of venture investors’ eyes. But the implosion implosion Vox The WeWork mess, explained Read more of WeWork’s listing plans in 2019 disrupted the industry. That was round one.
Then came the pandemic, round two, when companies swung from work-from-home to work-from-anywhere, redefining the concept of office.
In 2020, the gross absorption gross absorption Gross Absorption The amount of area leased in a time period of the leased commercial office space declined 41% to 34.1 million square feet (sq. ft) from a year ago, according to a report report Colliers Office Market Snapshot 2020 Read more by professional services and investment-management firm Colliers. The total leased space for the flexible-workspace sector, too, fell fell Colliers Flexible workspaces to lease 3 million square feet of space in 2021 Read more to an abysmal 2.9 million sq. ft in 2020 from a record record Colliers India Market Outlook 2020 Read more 11.2 million sq.
