IWG plans to open 40 new centers by 2025-end, pushes for partnership model
NEW DELHI:
IWG
,
flexible office space
provider, plans to open 40 new centers by 2025-end, in addition to the 10 centers it opened up between January-April 2025, said
Marc Descrozaille
, regional CEO of the company.
"We have been in India since 2004 and and it took us all these years to get to 105 centers, with
Regus
initially, and later with
Spaces
and HQ. Conditions have changed after covid, both on the demand and the supply side. Clients want to be able to work from different office spaces. And therefore we expect growth going forward," he said.
The company has recently introduced a partnership model. Operating the business has changed completely. Hence we are moving from being tenants to being partners. "We are operating the space, bringing in the clients and managing all distribution while landlords are investing into the space."
Even though the company is growing its partnership model, the legacy lease and sub-lease model is still important to them and they plan to keep running existing centers on the same model unless landlords specifically want to move to the new model. "As of now, the convention model contributes about 75-80% of our overall revenue. At some point of time the ratio will be 50:50," said Descrozaille.
He however admits that the margins typically for this new model will be smaller. "But on the other hand, IWG will not make the upfront investment."
Descrozaille took over as the regional CEO of the Indian subcontinent in January 2025. Post that, he says that their primary focus has been on capitalising on the current market momentum. Despite being the largest player globally, flexible workspaces still account for only about 3–5% of the overall office real estate market. There's a clear opportunity to significantly scale that share, potentially up to 30% over the next five years, as projected by several industry reports.
"Equally important is ensuring we have the right talent in place to support this growth. That means investing in our people—developing internal capabilities, building succession pipelines, and aligning our teams with long-term goals," he said.
As for the opportunity in India, he says that as a market India today is in the top 15 for IWG in the world, the ambition, very much respecting and looking at the opportunity of the market altogether, is to be in the top three or four in the next five years.
"One element which is very unique to India is the size of the market. In other countries when we think of expanding, we think of moving from tier-I to tier-II cities, but in India we can even go to tier-III and tier-IV cities. So it's very much a volume game, which is quite unique in terms of the size in India compared to anywhere else, said Descrozaille.
Currently, the company has three brands in India. "We can probably introduce Signature but as of now there are no plans to bring in more brands. In 2024, we opened centers in 13 new cities. We are also moving to tier-II, tier-III cities."
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