Office space providers shift focus to tier 2 & 3 cities

Managed office space providers are sticking to their expansion plans even during the second Covid wave to tier 2 and 3 cities as these clusters offer new opportunities and they also expect an increase in demand as more cost-conscious companies are exploring a hybrid office model. Companies like Awfis, Smartworks, ABLWorkspaces and MyBranch, Incuzpace say pan India plans are on track and they are aggressively targeting tier 2 and 3 cities as the majority of the workforce has shifted to these places. Amit Ramani, CEO and founder of Awfis and VP at Indian Workspace Association said, "Owing to the current work-from-home situation, many employees are operating from their hometowns in tier 2 and 3 cities." Companies too are looking at distributed workspace models that allow employees to work near home/work from anywhere out of a professionally managed work set up. There has been a significant upsurge in the demand for flexible workspace options in tier 2 and 3 cities with many working professionals looking out for shared workspace options. Premium co-working space provider ABL Workspaces, which operates close to 2,500 seats in Delhi-NCR, plans to reach 15,000 seats by 2021-22. Akshita Gupta, co-founder and CMO of ABL Workspaces informed that they have leased 250 seats to Unacademy in Greater Kailash following the same model. Awfis said that the increase in demand for co-working setups in tier 2 cities has accelerated its expansion plans. In the next six months, the company aims to have a total of 10-12% of seat capacity in smaller cities. Awfis has opened a new centre in Indore and plans to enter new markets like Lucknow, Kochi and Jaipur soon. Neetish Sarda, founder of Smartworks informed that the hub and spoke model would take precedence in future as we see corporate trying to bring workspaces closer to employees' home. Many of Smartworks clients want them to explore spaces for them in cities such as Bhubaneswar, Cochin, Jaipur, Coimbatore and Ahmedabad.