Delivering and managing high productivity, low cost workplaces : A data driven perspective

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to describe the creation process of the model for identifying the added value of corporate real estate management (CREM), implement the developed model in a case organisation and test whether it works in practice.Design/methodology/approach– The study is carried out using a constructive research approach, where the validity of the model built is tested through a single, but in‐depth, case study.Findings– The research presents the model for identifying the added value of CREM, the theoretical connections from the empirical research and practical implications of the developed model. Furthermore, the study presents the main step of a constructive research approach and examines the applicability of this research approach to real estate and facilities management‐related research.Practical implications– The model tested and developed in this research provides corporate real estate and facilities managers with the tools they need to identify their contribution to the wealth of the firm. The model also helps organisations to ensure the match between a company's business and real estate and facilities strategies.Originality/value– Previous research has not tested the model for identifying the value added by corporate real estate and facilities management (FM). The research approach of the paper, a constructive study, is also quite unfamiliar to and untested by real estate and FM researchers.

Building for a better hospital. Value-adding management & design of healthcare real estate

PurposeMany modern businesses have accommodation needs which vary sharply over time. Corporate real estate (CRE) managers plan for these variations using “common sense” estimates based on average occupation levels, and these estimates are almost always wrong. This study aims to present a method where these businesses can optimise decisions on their mix of short‐ and long‐term space based on previous occupation patterns.Design/methodology/approachThe optimum accommodation mix is derived from Monte Carlo simulation, where previous work patterns are resampled to estimate future needs. The method is extended to look at the effect of rental costs, and looks at how rental decisions are affected by attitudes to risk. Extensions of the method include pricing of real estate derivatives and assessing the probability of making money from renting premises. The method is easily within the grasp of most spreadsheet users, and can be automated using a number of simple, downloadable tools. This method is suitable for organisations with fluctuating workforces, and will be of special interest to project‐based organisations.FindingsUse of “average” occupancy levels to predict the accommodation mix, while intuitive, produces worse results than simulation. While the method is transferable, the analysis must be performed using the company's specific distribution. The mix depends not only on the ratio of short‐ to long‐term rents, but also on the renter's perception of risk.Practical implicationsThe method produces provides more accuracy for accommodation planning in all “real world” cases. The technique also provides an opportunity for the CRE manager to engage with the board about the importance of business planning.Originality/valueThe study describes a simulation method widely used outside the real estate industry, and provides simple side‐bars that will help readers to create their own models using Microsoft Excel.

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the skill requirements for the practice of corporate real estate management (CREM) in Nigeria.Design/methodology/approachQuestionnaires were distributed to 270 practising estate firms in Lagos State, Nigeria, 145 final year students of Estate Management in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Nigeria as well as corporate real executive officers of the 24 recapitalised commercial banks, 21 insurance and five GSM communication companies in Nigeria. A total of 260 questionnaires (58 per cent) were returned and found useful for the study. The study adopted the descriptive method of percentages, mean and proportion method for analysis.FindingsThe study found that in rank order, the skill requirements for CREM were financial performance skill, investment in corporate strategy, productivity skill, space efficiency management skill and customers and employees' management skill. The mean figures for the five factors are 5.0, 4.8, 4.8, 4.73 and 4.67 respectively. The results of the analysis also showed further that the portfolio efficiency skill had a mean value of 3.58 and was rated by the respondents as the least skill required for corporate real estate management.Research limitations/implicationsLimiting the scope of the study to CRE executives and practitioners in selected service industry and students of a university might pose a great challenge to the representativeness of the findings.Practical implicationsThe study has major implications on real estate education and practice in Nigeria. There is an urgent need to overhaul the university/polytechnic curriculum to incorporate business and accounting knowledge to prepare real estate graduates for efficient practice and the continuous re‐training of practitioners to prevent future declining real estate profession.Social implicationsThe negative implication of joblessness arising from unemployable graduates of real estate by corporate organisations breeds more social vices.Originality/valueThe paper documents the requisite information needed for developing contemporary policy on real estate education in the country. It also serves as a guide for real estate practitioners and regulatory bodies for developing contemporary real estate practice to meet emerging trends in CREM practice and for relevance in the practice of CREM as an evolving sub‐discipline of estate management.

Corporate Real Estate (CRE) management has several functional components, which are often owned by different departments and stored on different data management systems. A Building Information Modelling (BIM) centralized software framework is an efficient way to document, manage, share, analyze and present information used in CRE management operations and provide a single source of truth to allow evidence-based decision-making regarding individual buildings as well as property portfolios. This paper explores previous examples from the literature and presents a case study whereby BIM models were created for two existing small commercial offices to display information related to corporate real estate management, facility management and space use, building operations and maintenance, and thermal comfort and complaint tracking. These case studies demonstrate the data visualization benefits of this tool within this context and its potential for scaling to the portfolio level, as information in each of these models can be interfaced with its associated centralized data management system.

The quote Culture eats strategy for breakfast was made famous by Mark Field, president at Ford, in 2006 and has ever since been a guiding principle in management practice of corporations operating across the globe. General management profession has widely embraced culture as a key factor in strategy design. However, in corporate real estate (CRE) management it appears to be implicit within organizational differences at best or lacking proper consideration at worst. Analyzing the interrelationships between corporate real estate strategies and organizational culture is essential for delivering value to multinationals.This research empirically investigates the link between CRE strategies and organizational culture through quantitative analysis of data from a worldwide survey with 231 corporate real estate managers. The empirical analysis is based on two well-established frameworks in each of the constituent fields. The CRE strategies framework originates from the work of Nourse and Roulac (1993), further developed by Gibler and Lindholm (2012). It is particularly selected because it has been empirically tested with a similar pool of CRE managers. For the assignment of organizational culture we use the Competing Values Framework developed by Cameron and Quinn (1999, 2006). The choice of this framework is based on its extensive use across a wide variety of industry sectors.The findings indicate strong patterns of association between preferred strategies and cultural groupings based on the attributes of each culture. First, organizational culture effectiveness criteria emphasizing flexibility and discretion as opposed to those that focus on stability and control provide a clear dividing line in strategy preference of survey respondents. Strategies that have employees as their core target are prioritized by the ‘Clan’ and ‘Adhocracy’ cultures while Reducing real estate costs was the main concern among respondents identifying with ‘Market’ and ‘Hierarchy’ cultures. Second, compared to the previous ‘CRE Strategy’ survey of 2010 (Gibler and Lindholm 2012) there were very little changes in the importance that managers responding in 2016 place to CRE strategies in supporting core business. Third, expected outcomes were observed in the association of certain cultural profiles with particular industry sectors. Finally, factor analysis indicates two clearly distinguishable groupings based on the scope of each strategy namely real estate and non-real estate related.

Alignment between the organisation and its real estate and workplace is a long-standing issue in corporate real estate and workplace management. Alignment theory as used in our field originates in strategic management, especially in the design, positioning and learning schools and these theories have specific origins and strengths. In general, workplace alignment research makes use of and is based on grounded theory, design research as well as empirical research. When studying alignment, corporate real estate (CRE) management’s literature has two main types approaches to alignment: (1) creating a model for an alignment process, and (2) single CRE factors such as workplace. The first type focuses on balancing all different elements in the alignment process, amongst which is workplace, while the latter category focuses on aligning aspects specifically important for a workplace.

Current empirical evidence of the effect of physical settings on the innovation process or R&D work is scarce. Academic literature and articles on innovation and knowledge management, as well as studies on corporate real estate and facilities management, refer to the need of supporting knowledge work in companies by providing innovation-enhancing environments for the employees. A research project contributing to the issue is being conducted at the Helsinki University of Technology. The study attempts to improve general understanding and to deliver new knowledge on the interrelationship between innovation processes and place. Furthermore, the study aims to contribute to development of business practices especially in the participating companies, but also indirectly to the creation of new services in the real estate sector.

Corporate Real Estate (CRE) is referring to land and buildings owned by companies which are not primarily in the real estate business used for operational purpose. CRE covers the entire range of activities. Awareness of knowledge of CRE in Malaysia lacks because the researcher found that the operation of properties owned by a few large companies is undermanaged and underused. This review paper focuses on the definition of corporate real estate (CRE), components of CRE, and the current practice in the industry. This paper a desk analysis reviewing the literature on general management of the corporate real estate. By using the secondary data such as Company Annual Report, Previous studies and other relevant sources. There are several different issues to examine along the way, from the business strategies, Constituent and tools to help make the right decisions. It draws a framework for CRE analysis. From this paper, we can find the issue to improve the current practice on the CRE in Malaysia.

Corporate real estate management (CREM), much more than traditional real estate management, has to deal with very heterogeneous real estate portfolios. Administrative, research, production and logistics activities require various asset classes with a very different complexity showing different characteristics, conditions and levels of importance to the user, ie the core business. Even so, they often lie within the same CRE manager’s responsibility and also need to be treated with the same level of professionalism. As a result, the CRE manager is commonly confronted with an intransparent allocation of funds for building maintenance and upgrades and an ageing building portfolio. It is up to the professional CRE manager to establish transparency in his portfolio and incorporate schemes for the most reasonable allocation of the typically limited funds for building investments. Hence, it is the aim of this paper to introduce an approach for CRE portfolio management which combines both the business-driven strategies for building assets and a strong sustainability aspect in assessing the building portfolio from a real estate perspective. It builds on a preceding paper, published in Corporate Real Estate Journal, Volume 3, Number 1, pp. 10–23 (2013). Therein the overall concept of a sustainable CRE portfolio management is described, including selection of sustainability criteria and analysis of building conditions. This paper focuses on how to prioritise important and unimportant buildings and is supplemented by a case study.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate what impact International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) lease accounting changes might have on corporate real estate (CRE) strategies, and what the consequences for future corporate real estate portfolio decisions might be.Design/methodology/approach– A macro-analysis based on the constructive capitalization method of Imhoffet al.(1991) is used to determine the potential impact of IFRS lease accounting changes on Amsterdam Exchange Index (AEX) listed corporations. In addition, a series of interviews were held with CRE executives to discuss this impact and with CRE and IFRS experts for general insight.Findings– The impact of IFRS lease accounting seems less severe than expected. Notwithstanding, it could form a serious bottleneck for CRE departments that do not operate on a strategic level. Therefore, IFRS lease accounting changes might act as a catalyst for the professionalization of corporate real estate management departments.Practical implications– The paper provides CRE managers with a manageable insight to alter CRE decision-making processes in relation to IFRS lease accounting. The sample size was too small to make a distinction between different industries.Originality/value– Past research showed that accounting is a potential variable in CRE decision-making, but did not yet clarify the possible impact of IFRS lease accounting on CRE strategies and the relating CRE operating decisions. Besides that, this paper also provides insight for options to cope with the (possibly severe) implications.

This paper introduces section 404 of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act of 2002 to corporate real estate (CRE) executives and identifies some of the effects that this new legislation has on the management of CRE operations with respect to financial reporting controls. While section 404’s reach includes all financial reporting, this paper focuses on capital projects and describes one method for establishing necessary financial reporting controls through a Management by Projects approach.

Purpose – Driven by laws, and regulations, the transformation of the built environment is a herculean task. Green buildings seem to be a megatrend in corporate real estate management, especially for firms headquartered in the region Europe. This contribution aims to explore what the requirements of a respective corporate management fulfilling actual and future applicable laws, regulations, and responsibilities of green buildings are. Furthermore, it is examined to what extent the higher education programs take these requirements into account and what the gaps are. Methods – The study is based on literature review, interviews with professionals, corporate reports, and collected data of academic programs in Europe. Results – Green buildings requires different aspects of corporate management which is not represented by a singular discipline. In Europe, higher education programs focus some of the required content to prepare students for a corporate green building management but integrate rarely all knowledge required throughout a building life cycle. As a result, a framework of an education model is introduced integrating disciplines, and knowledge required of green building management. Conclusion – Only few higher education programs appear to be considering the transdisciplinary context of green buildings requiring knowledge in, amongst others, real estate, workplaces, architecture and engineering, facility management and its services. This contribution provides fundamental considerations and presents a structural framework enabling higher education in green building management.

The increasing stress of competition force companies to transform their structures and processes in order to increase market shares, maintain their competitive positions, and increase shareholder value. Within this context, many companies already have recognized that corporate real estate (CRE) is an important competitive factor. Therefore, identifying a suitable form of organization and institutionalization of CREM has been one of the major challenges in many companies over the last years. Although, many companies follow similar aims with regard to their real estate assets, and CRE managers are faced with nearly the same challenges within and outside their companies, many different organizational configurations of CREM can be identified in practice. The current state of organizational structure of real estate management is not adequately understood, and it has not been well researched yet which configurations meet the targets best. The aim of this paper therefore is to identify typical organizational forms in practice, and which management philosophy stands behind them. The findings show that two main groups of CREM philosophies exist: the ones where CRE is predominantly strategic-oriented and the others where CREM plays a more supportive role for the core business.

This paper presents a new Value Adding Management (VAM) model that aims to support decision makers in identifying appropriate interventions in buildings, other facilities and services that add value to the organisation, to manage its implementation, and to measure the output and outcomes. The paper builds on Value Adding Management theories and models that use the triplet input-throughput-output, a distinction between output, outcome and added value, and concepts, theories and data on the impact of interventions in corporate real estate and facility services, change management and performance measurement. Furthermore, input has been used from a cross-chapter analysis of a new book in which 23 authors from five different European countries present a state of the art of theory and research on 12 value parameters: satisfaction, image, culture, health and safety, productivity, adaptability, innovation, risk, cost, value of assets, sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility. The new VAM model follows the steps from the well known Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle, which are supported by various tools that were found in the literature or came to the fore in the state-of-the-art sections. In order to be able to select appropriate interventions in the Plan-phase, this paper includes a typology of typical interventions in corporate real estate and facility services that may add value to the organis­ation. The Check-phase is supported by an overview of ways to measure the 12 value parameters and related Key Performance Indicators (KPI). The new Value Adding Management model connects Corporate Real Estate Management (CREM) and Facilities Management (FM) with general business management in order to align CREM/FM interventions to the organisational context and organisational objectives. The VAM model opens the black box of input-throughput-output-outcome and is action oriented due to the connection to various management and measurement tools.