Leveraging CLM Application for Efficient Contracts in the Coworking Industry

In today's changing environment, people are transforming themselves from the traditional to a mainstream work model. There has been a shift in the technological advancement and changing employee preferences in large Corporations as well as in small Organizations. Coworking spaces have emerged as a vital player in the transformation by providing office spaces to the Organizations. The major advantage which a coworking provides for an Organization is flexibility, as traditional office need to lease a premise for a longer term and also it lacks in adaptability which is needed in today's business world. An organization could quickly and easily rent desk according to their needs in coworking spaces.

How coworking emerged?

The concept of coworking in India is new, but this concept of coworking was found in 1995 in Berlin. They introduced this concept as an idea to share spaces, thoughts and information to get things done in shorter time and limited resources. Later, the scope was widened by allowing the spaces for seminars, conference, webinars and so on. Later in 20s, there was many coworking spaces and many new entrepreneurs and startups started preferring these spaces, later even a MNC companies started occupying spaces in the coworks. According to the survey, there is almost 20,000 coworking spaces all over the world. It is estimated that the number of coworking spaces will doubled by the end of 2024.         

What is Coworking?

In general, the term coworking means people assemble in a neutral space or work place in order to operate their day to day business operations. In coworking spaces people from various sectors or industries come together and work, as people in the coworking work for different companies. They share the same common amenities, a major difference with traditional and coworking spaces is the business owner need not sign agreement for lease for a longer term as well these coworking spaces could be semi furnished if in case needed by the organization. Generally these coworking spaces has basic amenities such as flexible desk setting, Wifi, Printers, Conference rooms, Private Cabins, Cafes and so on. They could also have customized work space as well as with designed furniture and so on. Many startups and budding entrepreneurs doesn't have enough resources to buy and set up a confined workspace for their employees, in such case, these coworking spaces helps them to cost saving and convenience through common infrastructure.   

Why people prefer coworking?

There are various reasons why people prefer coworking. There are certain pain points which these coworking solves. 

• Firstly it is flexible, this is preferred by many bootstrap budgets, freelancers, startups and those organization or businesses which were in affordable price. 
  
• Secondly, there could be chances of networking and new opportunity flows from other coworking organization. Thus leading to expanding business operations.             
• Thirdly, enhanced productivity, a coworking space is a structured environment, which is free from distractions. Thus leading to focus and productivity.  
• Furthermore, these coworking spaces are mostly located in central and convenient locations thus making it easy to commute and access urban amenities. 

Growth of coworking spaces in India:

The pandemic accelerated the growth of coworking spaces in India, as the traditional workplace were forced to be closed in certain places. People moved to coworking spaces as they were more affordable and were safe working environment. This sector was driven by increased demand from freelancer, small and medium scale enterprises and startups. Seeing the benefits of and facilities available in coworking even large scale enterprises started adopting coworking spaces. In the quarter of 2023, there were 27% of net absorption across top seven cities.  Based on the locations, there was 12 to 72 % of cost reduction when compared to traditional office spaces. The India Coworking office spaces Market size is estimated at 1.94 Billion USD in 2024 and is expected to reach 2.72 Billion USD by 2029 i.e. growing at a rate of 7%. 

In 2020, it was estimated that, there will be 19,421 coworking spaces globally and by the end of 2024, there will be 41,975 coworking spaces globally.

Coworking is not exempted from having hardships. Some of the issues which the coworking spaces face are technology issues, finance, marketing, sales and so on. One among such hurdles is having an efficient tool to manage their Contracts. 

Currently, every business involves contracts or agreements which is their core activity in their day to day business operations. The Coworking space owners has to deal with a numerous contracts such as lease agreements or rental agreements, Supplier Agreements, Vendor Agreement, Dedicated desk Agreement, Private Office Agreement, Virtual Office Agreement, Event space Agreement, Corporate membership Agreement and so on. Similarly, for the organization who uses the space could involve in equipment lease agreement for water, electricity and other amenities needed for the working of the Organization. There might be a need for having a hub or a cloud storage to have all their contracts or agreements in one place and also not to lose agreements which were signed or they could face difficulty during the course of signing the contract i.e. there could be chances of getting lost or even losing the track of the stage of the Agreement, whether a copy of the agreement is served to the opposite party or not, having a track of the agreement whether it is signed by the parties or not whether the obligations were up to date and so on. There are certain technologies which could solve their problems. Zoho Contracts helps them to streamline their contracts which they involve into. 

How Zoho Contracts helps coworks?

Handling a numerous of agreements and contracts with different terms and conditions with different clients or customer are not easy. There could be chances of missing the payments, obligations or even the copy of the Agreement. In order to overcome the hurdles faced by the coworking, there is a need to have a systematic method to streamline the process of Contracts Management. This Zoho Contracts helps coworking businesses to get their work done and streamlined. Below are the few cases how Zoho Contracts helps coworking in day to day business activities.