Managing workplace complexity without giving up enterprise control

Q1. For years, the workspace industry has been described through the language of coworking and flexibility.Is that still the right way to understand what large enterprises are buying today?

Kunal Mehra: Not really. Coworking changed how companies thought about accessing office space. But enterprise managed workspace solves a very different problem. A large enterprise is not simply looking for desks or a standardised environment. It may need a dedicated workplace built around its brand, technology, security, compliance, operating standards and employee experience.

So, the real shift from coworking to managed workspace is not simply about larger spaces or longer commitments. It is about operating responsibility. The enterprise continues to control its strategy, standards, culture and business requirements. What it increasingly chooses to outsource is the complexity of translating those requirements into a workplace and running it consistently. Enterprises are not outsourcing control. They are outsourcing complexity. That is the mostmore useful way to understand where the category is going.

Q2. Why should a large enterprise outsource more of the workplace lifecycle when it has the resources to manage it internally?

Kunal Mehra: Because the question is not whether it can manage everything internally. It is whether every element of workplace execution is where it wants to deploy capital, management bandwidth, and specialist capability.

Behind a large workplace sits a complex stack: real estate, design, fit-out, procurement, project delivery, IT, security, compliance, facilities, and service delivery. Multiply that across buildings, cities and different phases of growth, and the complexity increases significantly. The role of a managed-workspace partner is therefore not simply to provide an office. It is to integrate these different work streams and take accountability for the outcome.

At Table Space, we have built around enterprise requirements from the outset, with the ability to integrate real estate, design, delivery and operations. The value of the managed model is not the square footage being provided. It is the complexity the enterprise no longer has to coordinate itself.

Q3. Almost every operator now talks about enterprise customers. What tells you whether someone has actually built an enterprise platform?

Kunal Mehra: Scale matters, but footprint alone is not enough. I would look at who the customers are, what they entrust to you, how deep those relationships become, and whether they return. As of March 31, 2026, Table Space served 431 unique clients, including 45 Fortune 500 companies and 115 GCCs. GCC clients accounted for more than half of our leased area. But one of the numbers I find particularly important is repeat business. In FY26, 56.77% of new area leased came from existing clients, compared with 29.88% in FY24.

The first transaction tells you an enterprise is willing to use the model. The second transaction tells you whether the model worked. In enterprise real estate, repeat business means a customer has experienced the delivery, operations and workplace environment and chosen to make another significant commitment. So, scale is not simply how much space you operate. It is the ability to reproduce an enterprise standard across customers, buildings, cities and years.

Q4. Table Space has significant exposure to global and U.S.-headquartered companies. How does that change the way you approach the business?

Kunal Mehra: Many Indian workplace decisions begin well before they become property searches. A global organisation may first be deciding whether to establish a GCC, which city to enter, how quickly to scale, and what standards the India operation needs to meet. As of March 31, 2026, 55.49% of our leased area is with U.S.-headquartered clients, which is why we have built a dedicated business-development presence in the U.S. This presence helps us build direct relationships with existing as well as potential clients and gives us early visibility at an early stage into the clients’ prospective real-estate requirements. If you understand the customer’s growth plan, talent strategy, and operating model early enough, you can design the workplace around the business rather than asking the business to adapt to the workplace. The workplace itself may remain local, but the enterprise decision behind it is increasingly global.

Q5.Is that also the strategic logic behind Table Space’s expansion into the Philippines through KMC?

Kunal Mehra: Yes. Global companies increasingly distribute technology, finance, analytics, and business-services capabilities across multiple markets. India is central to that ecosystem. The Philippines is another major global capability and business-services market. Through KMC, the combined platforms across India and the Philippines represent approximately 13 million square feet of space under management.

More importantly, KMC also brings capabilities beyond workspace, including Employer of Record, recruitment, payroll, compliance and IT support. That is interesting because the enterprise problem itself is broader than property. A global company may be asking: where should a capability sit, how quickly can we establish it, how do we employ people compliantly, what workplace do we need, and how do we scale? Those are operating questions. So, the opportunity is not international expansion for its own sake. It is to support global enterprises across more markets and across more of the operating lifecycle.

Q6. Technology and AI have become part of almost every real-estate proposition. What does technology genuinely change?

Kunal Mehra: The opportunity is much larger than another workplace app. Commercial real estate has historically generated a lot of information, but that information often sits in separate systems across leasing, design, projects, operations and employee experience. The real opportunity is to connect those signals and make better decisions across the lifecycle.

At Table Space, technology is embedded across market intelligence, design, delivery and operations. We use data and AI to evaluate markets and supply, accelerate design and capex planning, improve visibility during project delivery, and monitor workplace operations once a facility is live. The test for technology should be straightforward:

Does it improve a real decision or operating outcome?
Does it help identify the right location?
Shorten design cycles?
Improve project visibility?
Anticipate maintenance?

Reduce friction for an employee?

That is where AI becomes useful. AI in the workplace will matter when it improves decisions, not simply when it adds another interface.

Q7.If technology makes operations increasingly efficient, where does differentiation come from?

Kunal Mehra: This is where I believe experience becomes increasingly important. Reliable operations are table stakes at enterprise scale. Infrastructure, security, compliance and facilities have to work consistently, and technology should help make those operations more predictive and efficient. But a workplace can function perfectly and still feel undifferentiated. Experience sits one layer above operations. It is how an employee or visiting leader actually experiences the environment: — arrival, hospitality, meetings, food, service, support, and the overall quality of the workplace.

At Table Space, we have chosen to invest deliberately in that layer. We have a dedicated client-experience organisation, separate from core operations, and we have also built dedicated hospitality capability. That distinction is important. Operations are about ensuring the workplace works exceptionally well every day. Experience is about elevating what it feels like to be there. For global enterprises, that becomes increasingly relevant because the India workplace is often expected to reflect the quality and standards of their best offices globally. Operations make the workplace dependable. Experience makes it distinctive. And over time, that distinction can become an important part of how relationships deepen.

Q8. What will distinguish the enterprise-workplace platforms that endure from those that simply become larger?

Kunal Mehra: I think four capabilities will matter. First, relationship depth: whether enterprises see you as a repeat partner rather than a transactional provider. Second, operating intelligence: the ability to use technology, and data across real estate, design, delivery and operations. Third, experience: because once reliable operations become expected, service, hospitality and workplace quality become an important source of differentiation. And fourth, global capability: understanding customers closer to their headquarters, and reproducing standards across major talent and capability markets. That is why I think measuring workspace companies only by inventory or centre count will become less useful. The more important questions will be:

How much enterprise complexity can the platform absorb?
How intelligently can it operate?
How consistently can it deliver the experience?
And can it reproduce that capability as the customer expands?

The enterprise-workplace platform of the future will be defined less by the square footage it controls and more by the complexity it can absorb, the intelligence it can apply and the experience it can consistently create.

Source : The Economic Times