Meet Ravi Menon, Chairman of Sobha Ltd and son of PNC Menon whose legacy gives the son liberty to rest in his cabin and enjoy the laurels that the company has earned. But it seems there is something professional in the DNA of this family. Hence, the colleagues respect Ravi as first co-worker in the office whose personal involvement and eye for detailing is what has helped brand Sobha to get to the next level of brand reputation.
He came from Kolkata to Bangalore in 1993 to set up the Salarpuria Group’s construction business. But he believes that he was destined to be in this business. The business leader still carries the gratitude to point out that he was fortunate to be mentored by the best professional, Late Mr Salarpuria, in the industry which has goaded him to be where he is today.
A year back at the end of 2016, the doom mongers were out in force. In our office sector there were those who were predicting a slump in demand, uncertainty around the new Government in the US, the scare stories around automation and AI, the performance of the top 5 Indian ITeS companies, exaggerations around layoffs and even the dramas of corporate Boards of great Indian technology companies.
One of the most critical aspects of in business is ‘Caring Factor’. Every business on the face value tells its customers and stakeholders, including the employees, that it cares. It cares about them; it cares for them. It wants to make them feel loved and appreciated.
The Indian real estate market is not a single homogenous entity. There are seven major metro markets, each behaving differently, with different supply and demand dynamics. There are many different verticals within real estate – residential, commercial, retail, hospitality – and within those there are segments focused on different customer bases. With so many permutations, there is no ‘one size fits all’ answer. The urban southern markets in commercial office sector, has seen consecutive years of positive sentiment, take up and consequently rental growth.
As per the data available with Track2Realty, the Malayalese and other South Indian NRIs are nowadays investing into Kochi and Coimbatore than Bangalore or Chennai. Gujarati NRIs are investing into Ahmedabad and Vadodara than Mumbai. Mumbai-born NRIs are investing into Pune and Nashik than Mumbai. North Indian NRIs are investing into Noida and Ghaziabad than Gurgaon. One common thread into all these investments is scaling down of property segment – from ultra luxury to mid-segment and premium housing.
Smart Home is a concept which is gaining acceptance with the Indian consumers these days as many residential developers are incorporating this concept in their luxury projects. Essentially, a smart home integrates state of the art technology in the electrical devices that enhances the experience as well as makes life easier. With a busy lifestyle, the affluent consumers nowadays demand integrated houses which can be controlled remotely.
JC Sharma has been witness to the emergence of Bangalore as the ‘Destination Indian Realty’. He feels it is not just the business potential of the city that makes it an investment magnet. Rather, there are real estate related catalytic factors, like the developers’ focus on end-users, innovation with the product and adoption of advanced technology that makes Bangalore numero uno of Indian real estate.
From online presence to virtual tour of the property, and digital advertising to sponsored games & other connecting platforms, the developers are not leaving any stone unturned to touch base with NRIs.
Urban planning experts believe this is a much deeper question because it is not just about the existing urban centres but also about the way urbanisation is eventually going to happen in this country. As per the UN statistics the urban population of 40 crore in India would be 60 crore in less than 20 years of time. It clearly suggests that the existing cities won’t be able to fit in this additional 20 crore population, whether indigenous or migrants.