How Coworking Culture Is Helping Start-ups During COVID 19?
In the whole world, India has the 3rd largest start-up ecosystem, containing more than 50,000 businesses. In 2019 there were as many as 1,300 start-ups born, which translates into two to three start-ups a day. India is likewise one of the world’s top three leading unicorn hubs.
The coronavirus epidemic has perturbed the market cycle globally, leading to a slowdown. The resilience of business models, team resourcefulness, and responsible corporate cash management are put to the test. Although concerns about Covid-19 have also resulted in reduced footfalls in co-work spaces that have expanded rapidly over the past few years, this blip may be temporary and last until precautions are deemed necessary.
Coworking Is Emerging As The Foundation Of Start-ups
As not all remote or WFH workers have access to the amenities from home that they need to work productively, making coworking spaces attractive during this crisis. Many companies will now take the opportunity to rethink their work arrangements to give their employees more flexibility than ever before, especially considering the benefits of productivity and engagement. will push the demand for coworking spaces upwards. If the pandemic disappears, more companies are more likely to send the tick of approval to flexible work arrangements, which would involve shifting away from conventional office spaces to more coworking spaces.
The advent of coworking has been one of the factors behind that phenomenal growth. As India’s coworking industry opened new growth frontiers for the startup community, entrepreneurs embraced flexible workspaces with all their hearts. They benefited from the collaborative, welcoming culture at the core of any coworking space.
These Spaces Offer Perfect Environment For Working
While providing a favorable environment for creativity, collaboration, and growth, it must also be stressed that coworking players have also absorbed a huge component of business operating costs, which is the real estate costs. It has happened through the democratization of commercial real estate, whereby Grade A property – which was prohibitively expensive – is now accessible to businesses of all sizes. It, in effect, has democratized chances in India. This drastic reduction in capital spending has also helped companies to shift their resources to expertise, R&D, marketing, and so on.
As most companies were looking forward to another robust year of growth in 2020, but, like any other industry, the outbreak of the Covid-19 has forced our industry to re-calibrate.
By its very nature, coworking is merely an intermediary in a value chain with long and high stakes, bearing the burden of a very high fixed cost base. Even as businesses are forced to operate remotely, and the over 1,000 coworking spaces in the country remain empty, the coworking industry has continued to act as a cushion between our members and the real estate sector—additionally, we as operators were not spared the fixed charges which are part of our everyday operations. Besides these modern times, there are burdens of massive EMI payments and expensive capital that bog down the industry.
Factors such as these threaten to make coworking spaces unviable, endangering an industry that has cradled the start-up movement in India and has become an enabler for the new economy.
Coworking Spaces Will Be The Best Part After COVID
Today, as its effect pummels the world battles with Covid-19 and economies, coworking is one of the industries seeking the government’s helping hand. What the industry is looking for in the form of a quarter-long rent waiver, relief on utility bills, and a reduction in TDS. These are small tasks that will go a long way in ensuring the longevity of coworking businesses, and indeed start-ups and SMEs that benefit from our industry ‘s fundamental service.
Additionally, this will be passed on to our consumers once the industry receives the necessary support.
If the weather this Covid-19 storm, coworking firms will prove crucial to help India emerge from the slowdown as they will continue to harbor start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises while also continuing to benefit the entire real estate sector.
One of the viral outbreak’s fallout would be that companies are gradually looking at a hub and speaking model for working. Coworking spaces across geographies would be needed to reduce costs and allow people to work remotely, to prevent crowding in big, standalone offices.
But beyond business support, it is also important to note that the coworking industry has helped to create and support direct and indirect employment across the country on a large scale. India has emerged after China as the second-largest coworking space market in the Asia Pacific region. Our country has an area of more than 6.9 million square feet under coworking spaces. As employment retention and job creation become top government priorities, coworking could help India recover from the COVID-19-induced slowdown more quickly.
These Spaces Offer Best Facilities To Work In A Calm Environment
Coworking spaces continue to support members who provide essential services, such as pharmaceuticals, hygiene & sanitation products, and grocery stores. Coworking facilities have shown their contribution to the country and its welfare in doing so.
The durability and capacity of the industry are well known to bounce back from crisis when functioning as right shock absorbers. During the post-Brexit transition, businesses looking to move to the mainland did so through workspaces where Berlin and Paris were two especially beneficial cities. Even during this slowdown in COVID, inquiries for serviced workplaces in Australia have grown by around 30%.
Therefore it is prudent to say that coworking in the post-COVID world will be of particular importance when the country looks to business and industry to overgrow and lead the economic recovery. This industry has catalyzed India’s broad-based economic growth in the past and will continue to do so in a post-COVID world.
There is no question. Therefore, that minor compromises now given for coworking spaces will yield massive dividends in the future.
In the COVID-19 pandemic backdrop, while businesses may temporarily reel under pressure, investor sentiment remains buoyed, and business operators are hoping for better days ahead. The COVID-19 is undoubtedly not an end to coworking culture, as people would discover that the emotional and intellectual fulfillment benefits of social gatherings would be a crucial necessity for a society’s overall health.