The Smartworks' Strategy: What a story of Neetish Sarda, Founder, Smartworks

Keppel Land-supported Smartworks has recognized a superior plan of action in the workplace space portion. It is in the middle between a collaborating space serving new companies and a business office park serving huge ventures.

Keppel Land-backed Smartworks has spotted a better business model in the office space segment. It is somewhere in between a co-working space serving startups and a commercial office park serving large enterprises. On the other hand, while going to co-working was an option for mid-sized companies, it wasn’t exactly designed for larger teams.

The aim was to provide completely managed and configured office spaces with world-class facilities and a collaborative community environment that was both accessible and affordable. ”We seek to transform the traditional concept of a coworking office space into a managed office space, where we can build a company with a more robust business model with better unit economics and predictable cash flows,” explains Sarda.

He also worked for two real estate developers – Space Group and PS Group – and then Vision Comptech Integrators (part of the Sarda Group) before embarking on his own entrepreneurial journey. Harsh Binani, the co-founder who joined the team in 2017, had over seven years of experience in management consulting and real estate.

Following a stint at Medanta Medicity, spearheading critical strategic initiatives for the CEO, he has been responsible for envisioning the overall strategic roadmap of Smartworks, driving product development, customer experience, technology, and marketing. This will enable Smartworks to scale up rapidly across India’s Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities and further invest in building its next-generation product, improving client experiences, as well as boosting talent and technology.

Smartworks had started by focusing on start-ups/freelancers, but the enterprise business is bigger and lends more stability in terms of cash flow, while also ensuring better unit economics. “Early learnings on the right client mix with longer tenures and stable cash flows led us to focus on enterprises looking for convenience, business, and employee engagement/productivity,” explains Sarda. This focus has enabled Smartworks to become the only Indian home-grown managed office space provider to become profitable at the consolidated level in less than three years.

Therefore, harping on Design, Technology, and Hospitality, the company aims to build inspiring workspaces where going to the office becomes fun again. It provides chic office-spaced embedding concepts like data-driven workspaces, biophilic architecture, activity-based design, etc. Its technology team seamlessly integrates physical, digital, and service platforms while actively developing collaborative tech solutions to deliver a seamless experience, Video conferencing and networking equipment, cybersecurity, enterprise security tools, proprietary solutions for visitor management, a community and customer service app, augmented reality office tours, and Amazon Alexa-powered personal assistants are part of the experience.

The latest addition to its tech-enabled working environment is a Virtual Reality (VR) tool that lets its clients experience and sees how their space will look once it’s ready! One of the hurdles the company faced was challenging the preconceived notions and changing the mindsets of MNCs and Indian enterprise giants, who were reluctant to leave their comfort zones and trust a managed office space provider with their operations.

“We focused on not just providing office spaces but giving them a holistic experience. Right from the infrastructure, technology, employee engagement activities, configured offices, we cater to each and every demand of our customers,” explains Sarda. Smartworks, today, is a team of close to 300 employees with diversified profiles such as project managers, interior designers, marketing professionals, business development, community managers, facility managers, business analysts, and real-estate analysts, to name a few.

Having understood we understood this demand and trend at the very beginning of its business journey, gives Smartworks the confidence to cater to a large portion of the managed office space segment in India. And provide office solutions for over 200,000 working professionals across the cities where it is already present.

written by: