NAI Southwest Florida Commercial Real Estate Blog » Corporate Services

Who Needs a Corporate Services Group?

Kevin Fitzgerald — Tue, 11 May 2010 14:21:03 +0000

Experience has shown over the years that commercial real estate around the world is cyclical. Corporations become aware of overhead and are forced to reorganize the way they do business and typically the first department to be disbanded is the corporate real estate division. Goals and objectives remain aggressive around the country or even around the world but how can they now be achieved without the people. This is the time to lean on a professional corporate services group that will become the extension of the executives’ staff and literally becomes the corporations real estate department. It is the job of the corporate services executive (CSE) to build a value added team to enhance the job performance of the executive of the corporation.

With the breadth of these value added services, the CSE can function as an actual extension of the client’s corporate real estate department, providing the transaction management expertise traditionally performed by the corporation’s own employees. The single point of contact strategy has proven successful to many of my clients over the years; Amoco Oil, Midas International, Bridgestone-Bandag and HNI Corporation to name a few. We continually prove that we can bring value added services to our customers and clients.

These services can include defining project needs, selecting and managing the broker’s marketing or site selection efforts, conducting financial analyses, negotiating the business terms and conditions of the transaction, and preparing draft documents for the client’s review and execution.

By employing a Corporate Services strategy any corporation no matter its size can expand beyond its current geographical location whether that’s across the state or around the world. A CSE strategy is a cost effective method to adding to shareholder and stakeholder values.

Employing a Professional Corporate Real Estate Group

Kevin Fitzgerald — Tue, 11 May 2010 14:18:19 +0000

Not every traditional commercial real estate brokerage company can sustain a corporate services group. However, for a commercial real estate company to employ a corporate services group, a company must be customer driven and not transaction oriented. The desire to build a relationship with a corporation is essential to the success of any CSE group. The combination of strong central management of the client’s requirements coupled with unparalleled knowledge and expertise in local markets is critical to providing the highest level of performance possible. Each client has a specific Corporate Service Executive (CSE) to meet his or her needs. The CSE is the sole source of accountability and is fully empowered to ensure top quality performance by all team members on every assignment for the client. The CSE works closely with the client to create the short and long-term plans required to exceed client expectations.
Working closely with clients, the CSE jointly develops process management to maximize client objectives. By jointly developing this model, the requirements for the services to be provided are well defined for every assignment, the criteria for measuring results are in place, and the results of each assignment are used to provide continuous quality improvement for the next and each subsequent assignment.

Research has proven that at times traditional brokerage isn’t adequate to cover a client’s requirements. Therefore the scope of services must be expanded to include Information, Management, Advisory and Financial Services. These service groups enable the CSE to deliver complete and comprehensive corporate real estate services from Lease Administration to Lease Auditing, from Facilities Management to Facilities Development, and from Structured Lease Finance to Portfolio Optimization Studies.

Corporate Services Add Value to Corporations Around the World

Kevin Fitzgerald — Tue, 11 May 2010 14:14:16 +0000

We have all heard of corporations that for whatever reasons have undergone right sizing or re-engineering themselves. Consequently one of the first departments to become affected by this activity is the corporate real estate department. Customers and clients are demanding better and a more wide variety of services inside as well as outside the local marketplace. Global and virtual real estate departments are fast becoming the rule rather than the exception. Corporate Services has been identified as a key component to sustaining relationships around the world. A Corporate Services Group develops and manages client relationships, and ensures delivery of global advisory and transaction management services to corporate clients.

Corporate services can mean different things in different situations. Simply, Corporate services have been defined as those services required by corporations and fulfilled by a professional commercial real estate service provider that adds shareholder value. By engineering a Corporate Services model you are actually providing single source access to managers of large, geographically diverse real estate portfolios and requirements. The Corporate Services approach is focused on long-term customer service and managing tens or hundreds of projects simultaneously. A Corporate services team becomes the extension of the corporate real estate department without the financial burden of becoming an employee. A Corporate services team is only compensated when they perform the necessary and predetermined functions that are aligned with the corporation’s goals and objectives.

In the 1980’s real estate agents were merely known as real estate agents, in the 90’s we became preferred vendors and today we are considered strategic alliance partners. No matter what the label, Corporate America as well as local companies, have been looking for customer service from their professional commercial real estate partner. Corporate Services creates “value added” service combined with traditional brokerage services and is more relationship driven than transaction oriented.

A corporate services group employs sophisticated proprietary, on-line technology with comprehensive process management systems to mobilize and manage the full power of the organization. By offering commercial real estate services worldwide, a customer or client can be assured of a customized service guarantee utilizing a single point of contact strategy. Whether the assignment is in Los Angeles, Costa Rica, Chicago, Atlanta, Warsaw or Hong Kong, a client’s goals and objectives can be met with the same local expertise as if they were in Southwest Florida. Local knowledge combined with Global reach is a key element to this strategy by corporations around the world.