EFC: Revolutionizing the way businesses work
Despite the abundance of providers and their extravagant policies, most commercial real-estate providers have inherent issues that only grow in complexity with higher scales and stakes. The Pune-based EFC Land Development and Infrastructure Limited with their all-in-one value proposition are carving their mark in what’s essentially a crowded territory. Tattvam Media’s Sakina Baghdadi spoke to the founder of EFC Mr. Umeash Sahhaaii about the ethos, essence and credence of their company.
Thursday November 17, 2016 , 5 min Read
In recent times, commercial office space has become a cluttered market space, with so many new players entering the market and existing traditional business centers. Each exhibiting different USPs and snatching the spotlight to them. However, most of them fail to provide all the demands of the current- full furnished offices, co-working space, meeting room for rent and more. Entrepreneur Facilitation Center- a creation of Umeash Sahhaaii - claims a value proposition by addressing the diverse needs of the land holding sector.
Founded in 2012, EFC Business Center offers fully furnished office suites for small to medium enterprise to inhabit the office immediately.
Fulfilling the need of flexible working environment, their co-working space allows freelancers and solo entrepreneurs to work alongside like-minded people. This allows budding entrepreneurs to exchange ideas while maintaining a wide network of connections.
Used by 100s of small businesses, EFC’s virtual office service offers business- that don’t really require an actual office, to leverage from corporate business address for their company. Along with calls answering service, mail handling service and more.
Stacked with hi-tech amenities, they also offer conference rooms and small meeting rooms that can be booked on an hourly basis. Not only small start-ups, many established companies also take advantage of their technologically advanced conference rooms and business lounges on various occasions.
Here’s the excerpt of the exclusive conversation with CEO Mr. Umeash Sahhaaii , in Q & A form:
Q1. You come from a tech background, how did you stumble upon the idea for EFC?
Yes, till 2010 I was deeply involved in building Elves Technology from scratch to a successful venture. It was then that I realized, how much trouble actually goes into starting and running a new business. One of the biggest obstacles we faced was finding the office space. We had just started the business, so income was little to nothing, thus buying a new office was out of the picture. We then decided to rent an office place and buy new furniture for an office that isn’t ours. In that also we would have to wait for quite some time till the interiors of our new office.
I was looking for alternate solutions that could help us, but all I found was dead ends. That’s when I started noticing all problems faced by me and other startups around me. The most common thing was finding a good, ready-to-use and affordable office space.
I profoundly started working on different plans for an incubation center and finally laid the foundation of EFC in 2014.
Q2. What makes EFC different or more preferable than commercial centers?
As I said earlier, one of the biggest concerns for businesses these days is to acquire the perfect workspace. Not to forget the hassle of finding and maintaining a traditional office along with the trouble of brokers, landlords, long contracts with hidden terms, minimum guarantees, furnishing costs, overheads, legal expenses, IT expenses, and much more.
We eliminated every hassle! By everything, I mean everything.
All our clients communicate directly with a member of EFC community - no landlord or brokers- We eliminate the middleman. Secondly, all EFC centers are furnished with all the necessities of a working office- tables, chairs, high-speed Internet, 24 X 7 access, shared concierge, centralized AC, gourmet cafeteria and more. Once you sign the contract, you can literally start using the office the very next day. Also, we don’t force any of our clients with any type of lock-in contracts. Chances are rare, but if you’re not satisfied with any of our services, you can leave anytime. Our approach was always grounded and client oriented. That’s why we ensure that at least one EFC support staff is always available on the floor to solve client grievances.
Our single-minded focus was, is and will always be on consistently delivering services of measurable business value to our clients.
Q3. How has 2016 been for EFC and what are your key aspirations going forward?
Currently, over 200 businesses are benefitting from our services in at five locations in Pune and Mumbai. We recently launched our latest incubation center at one of the most upcoming IT hubs in Navi Mumbai.
As we move forward, and continue to evolve and grow, we’ll set realistic goals. We’re aggressively moving towards setting up new centers in Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Chennai. We're planning for two new centers of 25,000 seating space and ten new facilities coming up all over the country.
In the upcoming years, we envisage opening new business centers every year at various Tier I and Tier II cities and soon plan to step into the international market as well.
As of now, the global eye of innovation is fixated with India. We’re currently World’s third largest hub for startups and we’re looking towards more than 15000 new startups coming up in 2020. With numbers that big and steaks so high, I am sure you’ll keep hearing a lot from us.
