Neetish Sarda, Founder, Smartworks

 

The co-working space market size across country is expected to be 13.5 million users by 2020, entailing to half of its contribution from enterprises which are expected to take up 10.3 million seats.

 

Neetish Sarda, Founder, Smartworks, founded Smartworks in 2016 with a dream to disrupt traditional work culture in India by focusing on design, hospitality, technology, customer delight experience, and providing configurable workspaces solutions to large enterprises, SMEs and established start-ups. Central to this ambition is the company’s motto – ‘Workspaces that work for you’, ensuring high employee happiness, productivity and satisfaction indices. He also worked with two major real estate developers - Space Group and PS Group in the past. Prior to his entrepreneurial journey, he had a very rewarding stint with Integrators Ltd. as their Director of Business Development.
 
In an interaction with Mamta Maity, indiainfoline, Neetish Sarda said, “Smartworks has established a footprint of 2.8 million sq. ft. across 23 locations in 9 cities in India and emerged as market leader in Chennai and Pune on a consolidated basis; boasting a growing footprint of 6 lakh sq. ft., spread across 8 facilities.”
 
Where do you see Smartworks in the next 5 years?
Our expansion as India’s largest, agile workspace provider is a testament to the need of businesses of new India. Smartworks has established a footprint of 2.8 million sq. ft. across 23 locations in 9 cities in India and emerged as market leader in Chennai and Pune on a consolidated basis; boasting a growing footprint of 6 lakh sq. ft., spread across 8 facilities. Co-working industry is gaining momentum at high speed and industry has witnessed rise of new players, we are looking to foray into newer arenas. We plan to extend our footprint to 20 million square feet within next 4-5 years.
 
Please brief us about growth story of the company.
We started with 9,800 sq. ft. area in Delhi/NCR and today we have achieved a footprint of 2.8 Mn sq. ft. spread across 23 facilities in 9 cities, which includes Delhi/NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kolkata.
 
Our approach was very different from the beginning. Unlike other coworking spaces, our focus is large enterprises; with over 350 clients—or 90 percent of our total consumer base—are enterprises such as Microsoft, Amazon, Daikin, Samsung and Carrier. We are one of the fastest growing players in the industry and are profitable not just on a center level but on a consolidated level.
 
Who are some of your clients?
We have emerged as India’s largest, agile workspace provider and have catering to Fortune 500 companies, almost 90% of which entails enterprises like Amazon, Deluxe, Microsoft, Daikin, Tata Communications, Schaeffler, Samsung, E&Y and Hitachi to name a few.
 
What is your overall outlook for the co-working industry? What is the estimated size for co-working?
The growth of this market is gaining traction at an extremely fast rate. The reasons for this growth is manifold, foremost being, the reduced cost of working out of co-working spaces instead of leasing own spaces. The co-working space market size across country is expected to be 13.5 million users by 2020, entailing to half of its contribution from enterprises which are expected to take up 10.3 million seats. A lot of industry players entering into the picture instill India as a flexible space market across Asia Pacific region.
 
Today we are living in a digital era led by tech and AI. What are the tech solutions you have integrated to provide better solutions to your clients and what are the developments that are in progress for future?
As technology is all set to disrupt the real estate industry, we are also working in harmony with the trend. Our biggest differentiator is offering our client, fully configured workspaces that reflect their brand ethos and to further strengthen this we are investing in a VR technology – through which our clients can experience each and every part of the office and see how their workspace is going to look in the future.
 
Second, we drive the data-driven business model. We offer an in-house smartphone application to members that facilitates collaboration & networking to increase work efficiency pan India. It also helps in reducing downtime as it offers real-time tech support and ensures issues are resolved as soon as possible. It  empowers members with the ability to book spaces on the go for their meetings.
 
Third, Installation of visitor management system at our workplaces ensures effective processing and tracking of guests. We have deployed the first of its kind AI-enabled robot that manages the entire visitor management system and greets visitors.
 
Fourth, our asset management is powered by IoT to optimize and conserve energy and ensuring sustainability. Our smart building technologies give us real-time insight into our energy consumption and it also automatically controls the temperature to ensure optimal usage.
 
Your portfolio largely covers enterprises and corporates when it comes to leasing out space, what is this strategy like and why are you not focusing on start-ups and SMEs?
Unlike the West where about 45 to 50 percent of the commercial real estate consumption is by startups, in India, almost 95 percent is by enterprises. So we took this route to get into the larger market. Most of the co-working players in India—an estimated 400—are targeting startups, so it’s a cluttered market.
 
Currently, 95% absorption of commercial real estate is by enterprises in India. Analyzing the marker potential, we have positioned ourselves as an enterprise-focused service and the idea is to capture the bigger market. Also, when one imagines of a shared workspace, they think that the one who avail these services are startups and MSMEs. But a lot of large enterprises are moving into co-working space aggressively. The model that works for these corporates is that of de-risking portfolio.  This is the demand we saw coming from these large enterprises and we see this as an opportunity for us to grow and expand our services extensively.
 
Going forward, what can we expect in the sense that is there any venture expansion or vertical expansion in the pipeline? Is there anything particular that you would want to foray into?
We have strong presence spread across all metro cities in India. The co-working industry is witnessing Tier II cities as favorable investment market for the corporates considering talent pool that is available at a lower cost and plenty of spaces to expand. There is a strong business potential as these markets are constantly growing because of various corporate players expanding their business into small cities. Soon, we would like to invest and expand these markets with a presence in the Tier II and Tier III cities as well.
 
What were the challenges that came your way while starting up the company?
Initially one of the hurdles faced by us was challenging the preconceived notions of MNCs and Indian enterprise giants, who were reluctant to leave their comfort zones and trust a co-working space with their operations. We focused to provide a holistic experience to our customers and not just a traditional office space. Right from the infrastructure, technology, employee engagement activities, productivity driven programs, configured offices, we catered to every need of our customers. We believed in providing cutting-edge innovation and technology. This has worked because we were able to add value in terms of lending vibrancy, boosting productivity and ensuring employee happiness.
 
Our executive decision to cater to large enterprises was risky, but proved to be a game-changer for us. It helped us scale our business multi-fold and today we can proudly say that we have created India’s largest provider of enterprise agile workspaces with a growing footprint.

 

 

 

 Source: IIFL Shared About Neetish Sarda, Founder, Smartworks