How Smartworks Turned Managed Workspaces Into An Enterprise Play

According to CRISIL, India’s flexible workspace segment stock is set to increase to nearly 140-145 Mn sq ft by FY28

Smartworks leaned into enterprise demand early, with 90% revenue from enterprises and a focus on large-format campuses, trading faster scale for dependence on large, complex deals

With GCCs projected to become a $105 Bn industry by 2030, their need for rapid, multi-city office setups could make them a critical, long-term demand driver for Smartworks’ growth

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India’s flex workspace market is witnessing one of its strongest growth phases, with the total market capacity projected to expand to 140-145 Mn sq ft by FY28.

As enterprises expand across cities at an unprecedented pace and global companies scale their presence in India, the traditional model of long-term leases, heavy capex, and time-consuming office setups has begun cracking. 

The momentum in this shift comes from the surge in Global Capability Centres (GCCs) in India. This booming segment is expected to drive demand for 160–200 Mn Sq Ft of office space by 2030, with flex workspaces likely to capture nearly half of this.

Yet, despite this growing relevance, flex workspaces weren’t always seen as enterprise-grade infrastructure. For years, they remained synonymous with startups, freelancers and bean-bag offices. 

This is why Neetish Sarda says that when he founded Smartworks, it was a contrarian bet. The Smartworks founder and managing director says that the market was not ready to understand that coworking as a space would mature and move beyond these ‘perks.’

As Sarda put it, the company saw that the real opportunity wasn’t that small teams and startups were looking for desks, but that large enterprises would eventually also gravitate towards such infrastructure. Smartworks chose to position itself as an enterprise infrastructure partner rather than a coworking space.  

Sarda recalls that the key was fundamentally rethinking what an office space could be. Traditional leasing models required companies to lock in capital for years, invest heavily in fit-outs, and wait nine to 12 months to get operational. For enterprises expanding across multiple cities, the model had become a bottleneck. 

Smartworks approached the problem........

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