Managed vs traditional office spaces: Harsh Binani, co-founder Smartworks

Harsh Binani, Co-founder Smartworks

In a recent podcast Harsh Binani, co-founder of Smartworks, unravels the reasons behind the surging popularity of managed office spaces and talks about the key distinctions between managed spaces and traditional offices. He also delves into the factors driving the rise of managed spaces and its impact on employee well-being and productivity.

An excerpt from the podcast on the reasons behind the growing popularity of Managed Spaces

Harsh Binani: Managed workspaces have become a new way of life in India, esp in a post-COVID environment. Workplace dynamics have evolved, and today flex space has become the largest growth driver of the overall commercial office space segment. Managed workspaces have evolved in India, transitioning from business centres to coworking to finally what is now managed workspaces. As large global occupiers today focus on increasing their footprint with regard to their office space, they also recognize the need for having more fluidity and flexibility in their workplace needs.

Managed workspaces essentially take care of their entire requirement end to end, whether it is designing their office, doing fit-outs, to providing office services that you require on a day-to-day term; all of that is bundled with significant tech offerings and offered on flexible terms- this is cheaper than if you were to do it yourself. And at the end of it, making your employees happier and more productive in a setup such as managed workspace makes it a very powerful combo to make this an attractive and winning value proposition for any enterprise occupier today.

If anyone today thinks of making their own office space, the first thought that comes to their mind is, why should we do that when you have managed workspace provider doing all of that plus offering all of the services to us and yet they are more flexible. Today more than 25% of the overall commercial office space leasing is done by flex space/managed space operators. Happy to share that Smartworks alone did more than 10 per cent of India's total leasing last year, and we know this is the future, and we will continue expanding and growing.

Get a glimpse into the future of managed office spaces, including predictions for the next five years. Tune in to learn more about the tech-enabled spaces in today's world and how technology is revolutionizing the workforce.

About Harsh Binani: Harsh Binani is the co-founder of Smartworks, India's largest managed workspace platform with a growing footprint of over 8 Mn sq.ft., 40+ locations and a presence in 13 cities. Smartworks caters to the evolving office needs of enterprises, unicorns, and soonicorns. Harsh is an alumnus of North-western University - Kellogg School of Management, Illinois with an MBA degree in entrepreneurial studies, and an Economics graduate from Shri Ram College of Commerce, University of Delhi.