A working assumption: from the day a design-build contract is signed to the day staff move in, a 10,000 sq ft commercial fit-out in India takes 8–12 weeks. A 30,000 sq ft project takes 12–16 weeks. A 100,000 sq ft project takes 18–24 weeks. Anything quoted faster than that range is either pre-fabricated, partially exaggerated, or running real risk.
What sits inside those weeks
A typical 12-week programme breaks roughly into: brief lock and concept (weeks 1–3), design freeze and BOQ release (weeks 3–5), civil and partitioning (weeks 4–8), MEP and ceilings (weeks 6–9), finishes and joinery (weeks 8–11), furniture install and snagging (week 11–12). The phases overlap deliberately — a clean linear sequence is slower than a managed concurrent one.
The four moments most projects slip
- Brief lock — when stakeholders inside the client team disagree late. Solution: written sign-off at the end of brief week.
- Material lead times — premium imports run 8–14 weeks. Solution: freeze furniture and finishes selection by week 3.
- MEP coordination late discovery — when shaft capacity does not match the plan. Solution: pre-audit the building services in week one.
- Snag-list discovery at handover — when QA was not run zone-by-zone. Solution: hold quality walks the week the zone closes, not the week the building closes.
When you can compress the timeline
Genuine compression comes from three things: a brief that does not get reopened mid-project, an early furniture commitment, and concurrent crews on different zones. Spiceorb (9,500 sq ft) was delivered in eight weeks by combining all three. Bayer (100,000 sq ft) was delivered in twenty by running three concurrent crews on three plate sectors.
When you should refuse to compress
When the brief is unstable, when the client team has not aligned on the spec hierarchy, or when the building is older and the MEP audit has not happened. Those are not problems a faster programme solves; they are problems a faster programme exposes — at the cost of variations.