Embassy Services, subsidiary of real estate firm Embassy group, is finally trying to come out of the ambit of the parent group to expand its facility management services business.

Started in 1993, Embassy services came into being as an in-house facility management unit for the Embassy group, managing the group's business parks across the country. However, over the past few years, the company has started servicing customers outside the Embassy group and now plans to nearly triple that in 2020.

"We want to expand to every segment of the real estate industry. This year, we had over 70 million sq ft business space covered. With our deal pipeline we are expecting it to expand to 200 million sq ft by the end of 2020," Pradeep Lala, CEO Embassy Services, told BusinessLine. Revenues should grow in line with the space coverage, Lala said.

For FY 2019, Embassy Services group revenues stood at ₹1,200 crore, up from ₹180 crore in 2013, when Lala took over the charge to built the company as a competitor to larger players like JLL.

“We are now winning projects against the likes of JLL and getting into newer domains. We want to be logistics, data centers, commercial office space and even airports. We are already bidding for two GMR-run airports at New Delhi and Hyderabad," Lala said.

Currently, the facility management industry in India is dominated by large players such as JLL, CBRE and Cushman and Wakefield. Embassy Services is betting on growing at the back of investor Blackstone's investment portfolio as well as venturing new newer domains as well. Use of technologies such as predictive maintenance will help Embassy Services to grow further, Lala feels.

Of the 70 million sq ft under the Embassy Services, 40 million sq ft currently cater to just the Embassy Group. Blackstone group companies take up another 7 million sq ft while the company has also been working with HCL and WeWork to offer its services.

“We are bidding for an additional 50 million sq ft for HCL Technologies. We are also trying to get into the data center facility management space and are talks with several large data centre operators for the same," Lala said.

The challenge for growth however comes down to availability of skilled workforce, which is hard to find in the facility management space.

“People don't aspire to work for a facility management company. That's the big challenge that the industry faces today. We are trying to change that by creating a conducive work environment and career paths for our staff," Lala said.

But beyond offering career growth opportunities for existing staff, Embassy Services needs fresh pool of talent that's difficult to find in the market.

“To bridge this gap, we are building our own manpower training company and are engaging with several government schools to attract talent. Over the next one year, we would be offering training, certification and employment to thousands of people through our upcoming skills development center,” Lala said.

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