| |DECEMBER 20198Consultants ReviewTHE EVER EVOLVING CO-WORKING INDUSTRYAwfis Space Solutions is a new-age technology venture that is redefining the current business landscape by creating an ecosystem of workspaces for the Small Medium Individual Local Entrepreneurs (S.M.I.L.E.) on a just-in-time basis. It is the 2nd largest pro-working business in India with 2000 seats across Bangalore, Delhi, and Mumbai. By Amit Ramani, Founder & CEO, Awfis Space Solutions IN MY OPINIONlexible workspaces over the previous years have wit-nessed immense success in India. Co-working, a concept unheard of in the industry has now become an integral part of the growth and development of the real estate sector at large. This accelerated growth has transpired from the radical shift in the Indian cus-tomary workspace to a more flexible, accessible and afford-able co-working space. It has gained tremendous popularity not only amongst the startups and freelancers but also amongst corporates and multi-national companies.In the first quarter of 2019 itself, co-working had taken up about 2.9 million square feet of commercial realty which is 70 percent increase on a Q-O-Q ba-sis and a 277 percent increase on a Y-O-Y basis, leading to enor-mous opportunities for the co-working business in the country. Additionally, fuelling this considerable progress is the ris-ing entrepreneurial spirit, which is in fact seeping into the Tier II cities as well. Tier II markets Fare expected to grow to 8.5mn seats by 2020. Thus, given the robust demand and impetus that it has been able to garner, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to suggest that the best is yet to come for a segment, which is still in the nascent stages of its development.Intrinsically collaborative and flex-ible, co-working has observed many new trends and unique practices since emer-gence. While the past few years have unearthed some strong trends, which have redefined the future of the plug and play space, we expect the momentum to gain strong traction in the coming years as well. Here are the key trends that we foresee will re-shape the industry:1. Going Beyond Conventional Leas-ing: The business relationship between a developer and a co-working space Amit Ramani, Founder & CEO
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