FlexiSpaces, on-demand marketing place and aggregator for meeting rooms and shared office spaces share trends and insights on how co-working spaces are booked in India. Flexispaces report shared the co-working space booking behavior seen amongst Indian professionals, from January – November 2019. The findings are based on the demand, queries, and bookings made on the FlexiSpaces platform over the same period.
Highlights of the report:
- Millennials and young professionals are driving the co-working space in India
- Whilst Indians share space for business, they still prefer privacy while at it
- Tier 2 markets will be boosting the overall co-working space in India, over the next 2-3 years
- Many enterprises prefer to book co-working space for a small number of employees or remote locations to save on operational costs
Mr. Sandeep Singh, Founder of Flexispaces said; “This co-working report is shares insightful details on the way our customers make bookings for the spaces. We wanted to study the behavior of corporate, enterprises and individuals who book co-working spaces to shape up trends and forecast the upcoming year. Given the phenomenal consumer traction, the report reflects on the major trends seen in the coworking segment and helps the providers to focus on customizing their offers, basis the demands and industry trends.”
According to the report, a major trend observed is that corporate, enterprises and mid-size companies have started using co-working spaces to operate in remote locations where employee headcount is smaller. This saves them the immense cost and yet helps them operate as a formal set-up, especially in Tier 2 locations. As per the report, over 60% of the inquiries end up booking one.
Other trends that have been witnessed include the younger generation’s use of co-working spaces. More and more young professionals, freelancers and millennials prefer working at a co-working space instead of their homes. This has got a huge shift and given boost to the segment at large. As per the report, there is a number of millennials as compared to other professionals who book the spaces in India.
There is a huge impetus on privacy as well, despite sharing spaces in a co-working, 80% of the customers opt for private cabins in co-working spaces and not open desks. The report shows that customers don’t feel comfortable working from open desks in co-working spaces. They prefer privacy overpricing.
Another popular trend that was observed includes a significant rise in spending on meeting spaces across the co-working segment in India. The majority of meetings spaces that are booked have 4-6 seats and the average number of bookings slot is 3-4 hours, not one hour.
When it comes to locations, Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad tops the list in the number of bookings and occupancy of the shared workspaces. Tier 2 cities like – Indore, Patna, Bhopal, Kochi have been significantly increasing in the number of queries and bookings of meeting rooms and co-working desks.
Why Indian consumers book meeting spaces? – Looking at the trends that are emerging, more and more meeting rooms are booked by professionals to conduct interviews, meetings are training
Some young professionals also book spaces like an outdoor initiative; for instance – teacher books meeting rooms to conduct sessions away from the regular classroom setups. This is gaining popularity amongst institutes, dance schools, marketing, and digital training centers, guest lecturers and professional trainers.
Small enterprises also conduct day-long board meetings and sessions at co-working spaces as they seldom reserve large settings or meetings rooms at their office space.
Challenges faced by the co-working spaces: As per the report, on average, 20% of the overall occupancy usually goes vacant which is a huge challenge for the segment to overcome. Technology is the key to add fillip to every sector and co-working spaces are a part of the same. If adopted and applied judiciously, technology can help every large or small co-working space to achieve its 100% occupancy target.
