Spotlight on Human-Centric Lighting – Design Middle East
Vikash Banwarie, Managing Director MET-APAC-India at TRILUX Group, discusses his present role, diverse client base, and the growing emphasis on human-centric lighting in the face of a pandemic
What are your main priorities and goals in your role?
Being two years with our firm TRILUX Group, we have put lots of focus on bringing our brand and solutions closer to the key markets in the Middle East and Asia Pacific. The journey started by shifting our regional headquarter for growth markets to Dubai. I firmly believe that you can serve markets at their best when you are as close as possible to your customers. In particular, in today’s environment where digital is getting more common practice, living and experiencing the markets at first hand is so vital. As the region is very diverse, it helps us to really understand our customers and bring meaningful lighting and building solutions forward to meet their needs. In the same spirit, TRILUX also opened our own office in Singapore and we have tied up with new strong channel partners across Asia and the Pacific.
What would you say are the defining philosophies of TRILUX?
The brand promises to deliver individual value through end-user driven lighting solutions with leadership in sustainability and digital connectivity. We clearly see in both spaces the innovation cycles and product lifetime are getting shorter. New themes as circular buildings and smart connectedness require an ongoing dialogue with leading customers, architects, lighting designers, and other specifiers. This conversation goes beyond being a knowledge partner for all stakeholders in the building industry, but really involve your market in your innovation roadmap. For example, when it comes to smart buildings and cities, TRILUX works together with different companies beyond lighting and from an open-innovation mindset bring distinguished value to the building industry. A nice proof point is our collaboration with ZECH Group, a leading international consortium of smart building solutions.
What are the challenges facing your industry going forward amid COVID- 19?
Please allow me to share that our people are the most important asset. In the Middle East and parts of Asia, many of our employees are expats. They have been hit very hard in their mobility to be close to their dear families during the pandemic. Our first and actually only challenge was to protect our employees and their relatives. This was literally our main challenge. As on the other hand business-wise the pandemic has accelerated our creativity to further build our brand through digital programs, opening new markets on a strong nurtured network on distance and dare to enter new channels as EPC in Oil & Gas and run innovation pilots on for example PoE. The pandemic made our teams much more flexible and creative. I am so proud of my teams, who never gave up and delivered a successful 2020 and perspective 2021 is also promising.
What parts/products of your business are staying busy – or even busier – due to the virus?
Though most of the existing known trends continue during the pandemic, there is one that is getting more vast attention: human-centric lighting. Due to the pandemic health and well-being has been in the spotlight more than ever. And with a new norm of partly home working, people will continue to spent now even more time indoors. We clearly notice that the eagerness from the market to learn more about our human-centric lighting solutions and adopt even human-centric buildings is absolutely breaking through. Tell us about some softwares you are working with? A software is more appealing when properly designed and applied. As then it will be the DNA of distinguished services. At TRILUX, we provide a wide spectrum of tailored services. Some nice examples are space occupancy optimisation, crowd control, remote maintenance management, but also proximity marketing in commercial spaces and what to think about daylight simulation in 24 hours spaces like healthcare or logistics. At the end of the day, it is all about getting the business model explained and tested on value creation to our clients.
Who are your main clients?
As with many global companies, we serve a wide range of top box clients in the public and commercial sectors. It’s interesting is see that the role of lighting is changing due to the increasing role of themes like circularity and smart buildings, we not only work for more clients but especially we now also deal with different decision-makers who want to know about our value we can forward, from marketing directors to CFO’s and CEO’s from e.g. property developers, airports, universities, hotels as well as infrastructure.
What’s next for your company?
The beauty of TRILUX is that we are over more than 100 years always consistent in what we do. Though the lighting industry will demand more complex solutions from companies like us – that is why relevant partnerships are very important in our way forward -, TRILUX simplifies Light! and we will continue to do so. That might explain why we have continued growth also outside Europe.
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Savills: Human-centric office designs are important to attract and retain talent going forward
Savills hosted a webinar to highlight the most recent trends in the workplace across the region. The panel titled ‘How will COVID-19 impact how and where we work?’ looked at whether the residual effects of COVID-19 will fundamentally change how we work. To discuss the issue, the panel included regional real estate experts including Paula Walshe, Head of International Corporate Services at Savills, Nicky Wightman, Director Emerging Trends at Savills, Ben McGregor, Investment Director at ICD Brookfield, Silke Winter – Legal Strategy and Governance at Boehringer Ingelheim and Ketan Trehan, Associate Sales Head – Dubai at The Executive Centre. The session was moderated by Richard Paul, Head of Professional Services and Consultancy, at Savills who discussed with the panellists the key factors and trends emerging following the global pandemic.
To introduce the debate, Richard Paul explained how the concept of office space has undergone significant changes over the past few decades. It has evolved from the ‘cubical’ set-up, to ‘open plan’ desk space, into the more ‘flexible’ and ‘co-working’ environment. This has been slowly driven by changing business requirements, as well as in part, evolving employee needs and demands. However, Paul highlighted that the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a dramatic shift in our working patterns, as ‘work’ abruptly moved from traditional office environments, to a home setting. For some companies, the transition was seamless, partly due to the nature of their work and due to prior investments into technologies that promoted and supported remote working.
Following this introduction, the panellists delved deeply into the emerging trends to understand from multinational companies how their real estate strategy is likely to change going forward. The webinar covered how landlords have responded to these changing dynamics to ensure their developments stay relevant and competitive.
Richard Paul, Head of Professional Services and Strategic Consultancy at Savills Middle East said: “In light of the social and technological shift, the concept of the office building and corporate headquarters as we once knew it, is being appraised. According to the recent, EMEA wide, FiT survey, from Savills, during the first wave of the lockdown, 89% of respondents believe that physical office space will remain a necessity for companies to operate successfully. Our findings would strongly suggest that the office won’t disappear, but it will likely change. A change that will look to instill a work-life balance, with a renewed focus on physical and mental health as well as productivity and efficiency.”
Paula Walshe, Head of International Corporate Services at Savills Said: “We saw a continuous commitment to office space for our clients over the last few months with several notable long-term renewal and regear projects on large office spaces by Corporate occupiers in Dubai. How they use their space in the future may change and flexible working practices will certainly become part of the working landscape, however, our clients recognise that Office space is vital for company culture, collaboration, and creativity.”
Ketan Trehan, Associate Sales Head – Dubai at The Executive Centre said: “Every market and sector is different, however a key trend we are seeing globally is that flexibility is important now more than ever. Companies are demanding shorter and more flexible lease options. Being able to mitigate risks in the short and medium term, increase efficiencies and the ability to adapt quickly to the changing environment is critical to every business. Strategic location, amenities and the quality of the development play a part, but now employee well-being, collaboration spaces and technology are playing an ever increasing role in decision making.”
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