Global in-house (GIC) leasing is expected to drive demand over the next three years with leasing activity in this segment likely to be in the range of 30-35 million sq ft across the top six cities of Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune, says a new report.
A global in-house center is an office focused on delivering analytics, IT management and development, R&D and automation services to its parent enterprise. GICs typically lease large spaces, above 100,000 sq feet.
Bengaluru is expected to attract the highest proportion of GIC leasing, energy, and chemical companies are considering Mumbai, and tech and consumer electronics companies are looking for options in Delhi-NCR for GICs, says the report by Colliers Research.
Pune is also a top pick for GICs for financial companies led by its proximity to Mumbai, competitive cost and diverse talent pool. The vacancy rate in Pune is only about 5.2 percent as of the first quarter of 2019.
In Bengaluru, the preferred locations for GIC leasing are Whitefield, Hebbal-Yelahanka; in Chennai OMR Pre Toll is being considered and in Delhi-NCR the GIC destinations are Greater-Noida-Noida Expressway, in Hyderabad companies prefer Gachibowli and Hitech City; in Mumbai Powai is the choice and so is Thane-Belapur Road and in Pune it is Kharadi, Hinjewadi areas, the report says.
The report says that companies may also consider building campuses in peripheral locations in major cities, and in Tier II cities like Vadodara in Gujarat, Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.
“We expect availability of talent at low attrition rates, cost arbitrage, and a conducive policy environment enabled by certain state governments to drive demand by the IT industry in Tier II cities,” the report says.
GICs in India have undergone a tumultuous ride in India. The first GIC was set up in the late 1990s, after which their numbers increased. However, rising competition from other countries and the Global Financial Crisis led to a slowdown in expansion of GICs.
Since 2014, with about 1 million employees working in over 1,250 centers, GICs in India have increasingly been undertaking high-end work like product engineering and innovation, that are critical to their organisations’ success.
Over 2014-2018, occupiers leased about 53 million sq feet (4.9 million sq meters) of office space in multi-tenanted buildings for their GICs. Bengaluru led the demand with about 20.1 million sq feet (1.9 million sq meters), followed by Delhi NCR and Hyderabad.
Further, companies from the engineering, energy and manufacturing sectors favoured Bengaluru, which attracted a share of 32 percent between 2014 to 2018.
As of 2019, India is a leader in the GIC market led by a change in strategy among multi-national companies (MNCs), further aided by competitively affordable rents in certain markets (that offer sub-dollar rentals), a strong IT infrastructure, tax breaks and a highly skilled, English-speaking talent pool.
“With technology investments imperative to future growth, we expect occupiers will continue to invest in GICs, especially to develop Centers of Excellence (CoE), as Research & Development (R&D) hubs, and innovation centers. We foresee GIC leasing to be in the range of 30-35 million sq ft, between 2019-2021, across the top six cities of Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune,” said Ritesh Sachdev, senior executive director, Occupier Services at Colliers International India.
“Over the next three years, we estimate GIC leasing to drive overall leasing activity, especially led by the sheer number of large deals that such centers require. In the last five years, leasing by GICs touched 53 million sq ft, cementing India’s leading position as the world’s global center”, says Megha Maan, senior associate director, Research at Colliers International India.
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