Minds behind the best workspaces in India.

Latest in the cleaning

equipment and services

market; Rethinking

traditional procurement and

outsourcing strategiesTotal pages 56

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KHURSHED GANDHI, MD, CONSULTING & WORKSPACE SERVICES, CUSHMAN & WAKEFIELD, HIGHLIGHTS HOW THE COMPANY IS CREATING VALUE IN AN EVER-CHANGING BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

EVOLVING WITH BUSINESSES

Published by ITP Media (India)

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14 | January 2019 | Commercial Design

Evolving with businesses

In the age of digitisation, many industries are now challenged by disruptions in workspace protocols. Khurshed Gandhi, MD, Consulting &

Workspace Services, Cushman & Wakefield, highlights how the company is creating value in an ever-changing business environment

BY RASHMI NAICKER

Today, it’s not just about pay,

employees expect a superior workplace and a progressive

company culture.”

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Commercial Design | January 2019 | 15

Companies, today, are confronted by rapid shifts in market dynamics,

evolving workforce requirements, intensifying competition and rising cost pressures. This has led to their management teams becoming more aware of the company’s changing needs and are demanding greater value for every rupee spent. However, organisations are often so entrenched in managing day-to-day operations that they seldom have the opportunity to take a step back and assess their current state of infrastructure. Khurshed Gandhi, MD, Consulting & Workspace Services, Cushman & Wakefield, sheds light on some of the key disruptors and how companies can adapt to such tectonic shifts, while optimising their cost structure.

Tell us about the critical strategies implemented to streamline Cushman & Wakefield’s vast portfolio of clients…While we have a variety of products, we do respect that

differentiator in attracting and retaining the best talent in the industry. It’s not just about pay, employees expect a superior workplace and a progressive company culture.

After hot-desking and co-working spaces, what are the major disruptors expected in the year to come?Impetus is being given to productivity improvement rather than just cost savings. For several

clients need change over time, either dramatically or evolutionary. Our core strategy is to evaluate clients’ needs in detail and provide services based on customised solutions. We have also actively started using technology for this purpose. Cushman & Wakefield also continues to invest in creating workspaces that are a reflection of our organisation — friendly, agile and collaborative. The workplace is now seen as a key

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16 | January 2019 | Commercial Design

space usage as a team grows or shrinks; and b) Presence of several innovative companies in their ‘community’ with whom they engage synergistically.

Co-working spaces are designed on an ABW model and have a number of ‘informal’, ‘living room’ style spaces. Rather than collaborating in formal environments, the objective is to allow people to connect naturally in informal settings. It is financial flexibility with no CAPEX spend (mainly OPEX), combined with limited commitment from a lease perspective and workplace dynamism that makes this model attractive to occupiers.

What are the practices that need to change in the design and operations phase of commercial spaces today?We still tend to under-design long-term infrastructure and flexibility into our developments like parking, number of lifts, etc. An increased focus on sustainability, efficiency (power, water, etc) to reduce ecological impact is a must at the design stage. Further, future building operations have to be considered and planned for at the design

companies, cost savings achieved through ABW or NTW are implementation drivers. With the adoption of Scrum, Agile, Six Sigma and other innovative work styles, ABW becomes a critical tool to drive higher levels of productivity while optimising real estate costs. ABW/NTW is no longer an ‘innovative’ approach, instead it is a bottom-up driven business need. It’s not just about optics and cost management, it’s about higher levels of productivity and revenue.

We haven’t yet felt the true impact of co-working, as it currently constitutes a little

over five million square feet (approximately 1%) of India’s investment grade stock. This means the phenomenon has already changed the way potential occupiers (and employees) are evaluating and designing workspaces. We are likely to see a significant shift in the way real estate is managed by occupiers as many such options become available.

Co-working spaces are largely successful due to the immense flexibility they give occupiers: a) The flexibility to extend or cancel contracts at any time to match the associated change in

Impetus is being given to productivity

improvement rather than just cost savings.”

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Commercial Design | January 2019 | 17

stage. We are increasingly seeing organisations evaluating the ‘wellness’ of employees and their associated environments. It is critical to start building developments that can be made future ready without significant mid-life investment.

Which big-data algorithms does the company utilise, considering the volatility of the real estate market? In the real estate industry, you’d be hard pressed to find “real big-data” applications – although large property data sets and the application of data analytics helps bring in our bread and butter. At Cushman & Wakefield, our approach to data has always been to centralise as much as possible – especially given that we function in a global market with local interests and sensibilities. We have to be able to pull out a report that can give a potential investor, say, based in Singapore the rental and market movements for Mumbai CBD. This is possible only with a single source of truth. We manage this through property database applications that track

Cushman & Wakefield continues to invest in creating workspaces that are a reflection of theirorganisation — friendly, agile and collaborative.

We still tend to under-design

long-term infrastructure and flexibility

into our developments.”

A glimpse into Cushman & Wakefield’s very own office spaces.

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18 | January 2019 | Commercial Design

supply and demand of transactions through integrations with our sales systems and flowing up to the financial transactions we execute with our clients. This is continuously updated with market information and through feet-on-ground and partnerships with property intelligence and transactional data providers. It allows us to capture all the facets of property, tenant, owner and transactional information.

Property metrics like vacancy percentages, leasing trends, time to market; Financial metrics like occupancy costs, capital expenses required, cost per seat, etc; and other performance measures are all aggregated and visualised through GIS platforms and dashboards curated for individual client needs.

Services such as ArcGIS, Tableau and Power BI are provided to our employees for quick analytics and presentation capabilities. Our research teams are also equipped with big data capable statistical tools like R Programming to sift through years of data. This enables them to employ predictive analytical models to advise clients

WORKSPACES, THE WAY THEY ARE DESIGNED AS WELL AS MANAGED HAVE UNDERGONE DIVERSE TRANSFORMATIONS. WHAT, IN YOUR OPINION, IS THEIR FUTURE?

They will have to be dynamically designed to adapt to ever-changing business needs, while capturing the essence of expectations from various stakeholders in a bid to optimise productivity and overall collaboration within organisations. Some of key factors that will impact workspace design include:• Increasing technology adoption: It significantly drives the change in the way we work, since

storage is moving to the cloud, there’s less need for paper-based documentation and archival storage. Collaboration on a local, regional and global level is easier and feasible with a range of tools. However, at the same time, face time is more important than ever before, not only for work collaboration but also to connect at an interpersonal level.

• Changes in hierarchy: The emphasis on position and title will continue to decline, while emphasis on roles, collaboration and working across different layers of the organisation will increase. This is why team leaders, mid-management and staff all occupy similar workstations or desks without hierarchy. This pushes towards increased levels of collaboration, both through cross-functional teams and across different levels of seniority.

• Agility is critical: Given how fast global, regional and local markets are changing, companies need agile cross-functional teams that adapt quickly to changes. Teams should remain flexible, quickly forming groups to respond to changing business needs. Hence, the workspaces would need to be able to respond to this agility of: a) quickly expanding and contracting teams coupled with highly collaborative processes, both in-person and through technological means; and b) Activity-Based Working (ABW) or Non-Territorial Working (NTW) that give occupiers the flexibility to increase and downsize their headcount to respond to changing business environments. Agility is viewed in favour of exploring innovative workplace concepts amongst key C-Suite members.

• Increasing importance of user experience: Occupiers are understanding the need for ‘user experience’ in workplaces. It’s about how things are perceived, experienced and appreciated, both by internal and external stakeholders. The workplace experience directly impacts talent attraction, retention and ongoing engagement. Firms with the cash to spare are starting to look at hospitality driven FM concepts.

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Commercial Design | January 2019 | 19

We haven’t yet felt the true impact of co-working, as it currently

constitutes a little over five million

square feet (approximately 1%) of India’s

investment grade stock.”

on market forecasts and help investors and occupiers make intelligent decisions on the 3Ls of corporate real estate: Location consolidation, Lease renegotiations and Layouts simplification.

Given that Indian metros have almost reached their saturation points, do you think tier-2 and tier-3 cities are catching up to share the load? We believe India’s top seven cities will continue as activity centres (of the corporate occupier activity) over the next three to five years, since the existing ecosystem has taken years to evolve. Ecosystems are created by a multitude of factors including economic drivers, talent availability, connectivity, physical and social infrastructure, investment grade supply, institutional infrastructure (schools, colleges, professional programmes, hospitals, etc) and supportive government practices coupled with other factors.

However, increased activity is expected in tier-2 markets such as Vijaywada, Indore, Nagpur, Amravati, Trichy, Kochi, Jaipur, etc. While these currently cater to local demand, the ecosystems necessary to make them larger destinations of choice are currently building up. It is likely that the shift to other cities would be gradual especially from the commercial office market perspective. What’s critical is the need for talent availability, physical, social and institutional infrastructure, overall business activity and city competitiveness.

Which systems and software does Cushman & Wakefield have in place to manage and monitor the performances of the facilities it manages?With the advent of PropTech 3.0, the intelligent technology solutions available to any player in the real estate industry have become countless — it’s difficult to pinpoint particular solutions

that stand out from the crowd as there are better versions constantly being developed. And so, we employ the partnership first mentality, which allows the company to think on its feet, keep abreast of the latest trends in any application within the industry — all the while giving us the opportunity to fail fast and learn quickly. And this couldn’t be truer than for the FM sector that requires long-term engagement with clients, hence necessitating a more evolved and engaged technology approach with clients.

Our partnerships are with leading IT services companies that allow for management of obvious services like centralised helpdesk management services, asset management, preventive

maintenance to inventory control, inspection management, workforce tracking. They also work to enhance the tenant experience through services like self-service portals and one-touch mobile apps, reporting services that help with capital planning, resource planning and asset lifecycle management.

Expansion of this product line leads to procurement management as well as space and occupancy planning, while being able to track financials down to the business unit allows for cost optimisations. For us, FM extends to employee wellness and experience solutions as well. We provide technologies that can enhance this through simplified workplace apps for day-to-day

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20 | January 2019 | Commercial Design

requirements like transport requests, cafeteria orders, booking seats, booking concierge services – the options are limited only by the client’s needs. Each aspect could lead to disparate solutions but given our ability to leverage technology partners that can scale up or down based on necessity, we can stitch the tools together to provide a seamless experience to end-users. Now, our facilities services are expanding to leverage Artificial Intelligence as well through chatbots that are being piloted to provide first-line support to our clients via centralised helpdesks services.

How has the company used IoT to its benefit, especially for the functioning and operations of its projects and management properties?For Cushman & Wakefield, the aim of any automation initiative is always driven with end results in mind — once the framework is established for key objectives, the technology can be moulded to suit the specific building or operational concern. Especially with a technology like IoT, the cases can be endless but it’s always the requirement that drives innovation and application. The most common requirement

for IoT application is space occupancy management and optimisation, which is invariably where a significant portion of real estate expenses lie for our clients.

We have clients for whom we’ve utilised sensor technology placed strategically (read: financially) to capture employee movement. This gets aggregated to understand space utilisation by business units; high interest and footfall areas through heat maps; and utilisation of seats and spaces like meeting rooms and quiet spaces. It allows us to pro-actively advise clients with custom solutions to enhance workplace experience and employee engagement. For instance, if data shows that employees tend to move around the cafeteria or open meeting spaces rather than closed meeting rooms or desks, then the organisation would benefit from creating more breakout spaces. These space tracking applications also create wayfinding solutions for employees that can lead them to the nearest empty seat or meeting rooms or even a colleague.

The other commonly used application for IoT at Cushman & Wakefield is in the area of predictive maintenance and remote management of critical assets and buildings. This is especially true for occupiers with large footprints across multiple countries, where it can be a challenge to centrally visualise and monitor asset- and space performance. IoT technology helps track as well as predict possible breakdowns through monitoring data trends and outliers in information captured.

While the adoption of IoT has been limited due to heavy capex investments, we work closely with emerging technology providers that leverage Wi-Fi networks and simple software applications to track utilisation and performance without the need for any hardware installation. We expect renewed interest in this area and expect exciting times.

While the adoption of

IoT has been limited due to heavy capex investments,

we work closely with technology providers that leverage Wi-Fi networks and

simple software applications without the need for any

hardware installation.”