Steelcase plans ancillary furniture studio in Hyderabad

The work-from-home concept has opened up new opportunities for furniture players

Hyderabad: Steelcase, which is into offering architecture, furniture and technology products and services, is looking to set up an ancillary and loose furniture studio in Hyderabad.

It already has an experience centre in Hyderabad. This apart, it is open to be a part of specialised industrial parks like the proposed Furniture Park near Hyderabad, said Praveen Rawal, Steelcase MD, India and SAARC, Design Applications APAC.

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Hyderabad now accounts for about 15 per cent of the total business in India. The company has two manufacturing units in Pune and is now focused on increasing the share of local components, he said.

“Steelcase handled office furniture projects for many companies in Hyderabad from pharma, IT and ITES, semiconductor, research and development, biomedical and related sectors. These segments will be the key drivers in future as well. “Semiconductor industry is talking about millions of sqft. Many players have invested or in the process of investing in office spaces. We are seeing growth coming back and many companies in Hyderabad are adding new campuses or are consolidating all operations into a single campus,” he said.

Among others, it also helped one company from Bengaluru to shift the office to Hyderabad by moving the office furniture in about 40 trucks.

The work-from-home concept has opened up new opportunities for furniture players. The study-from-home segment is also growing. “In both these segments, seating position defines productivity. Many companies are spending for the WFH infra including desktops, laptops, tables, chairs, internet connection, UPS and others. Parents are also thinking in terms of buying a good chair for children. Seating is now given the same importance they would give while buying a home appliance,” he said.

Days of having big meeting spaces and fixed walls are gone. Assigned seating is getting replaced by unassigned seating. The shift is towards height adjustable workstations, he said about the trends.

The trend of combining concepts from residential and commercial projects to enhance productivity in the WFH mode is here to stay. “Fixed walls and immobile furniture can hinder productivity and efficiency,” the official said adding that in October Steelcase launched Flex Huddle Hub, which allows teams to reconfigure their workplace, create workstations or collaboration spaces on-demand. It also launched RoomWizard, a space management technology that allows teams to search, find and reserve rooms, desks and work spaces across their offices. This can be integrated into an organisation’s existing scheduling and calendar platforms.

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