Startup India effect: Coworking space demand on rise, developers adapting to change

Startup India has not only made life easy for the Indian SMEs and MSMEs, but it has also created a new avenue for revenue for the Indian real estate developers i.e. coworking space. The ease of incepting business that a Coworking space provides is attracting the nascent startups to curtail their investment or seed capital to start their venture. Sensing the new trend taking place in the real estate sector, developers have also started to respond to this rise in Coworking space demand and they have started to come with Coworking space in their commercial projects.

Speaking on Startup India role in fuelling Coworking space demand Rajeev Chawla, Chairman, IamSMEofIndia said, "After the Startup India scheme, a lot of Startups have emerged in India. As they initially want to see the viability of their business subject to input cost and income variation, Coworking space is giving them an option where they can just come in and start their business as Coworking space provide the entire infrastructure required to run a Startup and other kinds of firms."

Mishu Ahluwalia, Founder & CEO at GoHive said, “The real estate industry in India is fast adapting to the change in how office leases are looked at by occupants today. The owners and developers have started to acknowledge the rising demand for flexible workspaces, and are willing to offer their space as the solution. Unlike two years ago, when owners/developers were reluctant at giving space to a coworking operator, today, they look at a coworking operator as an Anchor client to kick start a new commercial project’s occupancy. This change in approach will help fill up the gap between the rising demand and the required supply, and ensure a healthy ecosystem for the coworking industry."

On reason for rising in demand for Coworking space, Mishu Ahluwalia of GoHive said, "The rise in demand for coworking spaces cannot be attributed to just one factor. Coworking as a workspace solution offers flexibility to companies, to ramp up or ramp down the seat count as needed. It also allows companies access to cool, quirky & inspiring workspaces, without having to worry about the initial capital expenditure, or setup up an administrative department to efficiently manage it. Another aspect that a lot of companies are getting more & more concerned about is the travel times that their employees spend while commuting to the office and the lack of productivity it results in. This big but unspoken issue is being addressed wonderfully by the coworking spaces, as the companies can now find a plug & play flexible workspace at the location(s) convenient to them, and offer such flexibility to their employees. All of these factors have resulted in a constant rise in demand for coworking spaces, and this is expected to rise manifolds over the next few years.”

Speaking on the reason for rising in demand for Coworking space in India Nakul Mathur, MD, Avanta India said, "Most important reason is the cost-saving that these flexible office spaces provide to their clients. Another one is the hassle-free start of business without thinking of the payments to various vendors such as electricity, internet, etc. The cost spent on the office infrastructure earlier can now be spent on the business needs. Virtual Office gives startups a prime office address at a very minimal cost." 

Mathur added that with start-ups developing all over, the need to have compact office space has increased. "These start-ups work on limited budgets initially and do not have huge sums to invest in offices. The co-working spaces provide them the required space within their stipulated budget. The two are complementing each other and will flourish with the scope of start-ups improving every day," said Avanta India.