New Research Puts IDRC’s Past, Current and Future Value in Perspective

Organizations that resist change or cannot change will soon find themselves on the endangered species list in the business world. The forces of technology, entrepreneurship and globalization are too powerful to ignore. Yet change for change’s sake is just as dangerous. Sorting out which steps should be taken by an organization to maintain and build on its value and relevancy to its constituents while preserving its core strengths is a vitally important exercise for any company or organization. And it is one that the International Development Research Council (IDRC), the leading global association of corporate real estate professionals and service providers, is in the midst of.

For several months, IDRC’s research team has been working on a document that profiles members and identifies the association’s core strengths with an eye to articulating the value of those strengths to association members and the corporate real estate profession at large. The report, IDRC’s Defining Characteristics, serves as a valuable tool in gauging the organization’s ability to meet industry and broader business cycle challenges that are emerging all the time. The report was distributed to IDRC members at the association’s Spring 2000 World Congress in New York City.

“The goal of IDRC is to be a market-driven organization focused on understanding and meeting the needs of its membership and the corporate real estate profession,” says Larry Edge, IDRC’s executive director. “The first step is the profiling of the members so that we understand who we are and where we are going. As we gather more information about ourselves and the trends of the industry, we will become more effective leaders of change for creating value in the workplace.”

IDRC’s Defining Characteristics is organized into four broad categories of core association strengths. The categories are membership, programming, outlook and outreach and strategic potential. The defining characteristics discussed in each category include IDRC membership information that supports or rationalizes the association’s activities related to the core strength.

Membership Characteristics

For example, over 60 percent of active (corporate) IDRC members head their companies’ corporate real estate function; 40 percent hold the title of president, vice president or director. This data confirms the first defining characteristic discussed in the report, which says that IDRC serves the corporate real estate profession’s top executives. The significance of this fact is twofold. First, it requires the association to tailor educational and networking resources to a high-level audience, one accustomed to thinking and managing strategically. Secondly, it ensures the active and enthusiastic participation of the service provider community in IDRC events, particularly the World Congresses, because they prefer associating with key corporate decision makers.

IDRC members take their affiliation with the association seriously, according to the report’s discussion of the second defining characteristic, member involvement. Nearly two-thirds of all members are involved in educational programs or a leadership capacity. At the same time, member involvement is significant across a range of industries, which enriches the programming and networking experiences of members. The report recognizes the association’s success at transitioning itself from a largely industrial association with a site selection focus to an entity addressing the workplace issues of a diverse corporate membership.

This is no small point, given the ubiquity of Internet-based companies and the increased diversity of the business world — and of the membership — brought on by globalization. IDRC’s successful transition to today’s “e”conomy and workplace orientation bodes well for the association’s future transition to the next level of strategic thinking.

“Everything we do in the future will be Web-based,” predicts Robert L. Deaton, global manager, construction & workplace design, at Whirlpool Corp., Benton Harbor, Mich. “IDRC needs to lead in e-business topic development.” Deaton, an IDRC Best Practice Award winner, served on a research advisory panel associated with the development of this report.

Programming Strengths

The third defining characteristic addressed is IDRC’s powerful networking opportunities; the report refers to networking as “IDRC’s backbone,” to which even educational and social activities are secondary. The twice-yearly North American World Congresses and the annual Congresses in Europe and Asia provide networking opportunities for “upwards of 4,000 corporate real estate professionals and service providers.” Even more frequent networking opportunities are afforded by participating in local chapter activities; local meetings account for an annual attendance of over 5,000 people, the document reports.

The hallmark of IDRC’s programs — the fourth defining association characteristic — is their strategic focus. In other words, while transactional expertise remains a key component of the corporate real estate professional’s skill set, his ability to participate in business strategy discussions and activities is more important still. This current focus reflects the fact that “Many of IDRC’s leaders, as represented by the members of its board of directors, have broad and strategic responsibilities that extend well beyond the traditional corporate real estate domain,” reads part of the report’s chapter on educating the business strategist.

Staubach International’s Terry Rees, another member of the research advisory panel, puts the importance of strategic programming like this: “What the younger professionals want for training is totally different from what older members need or want. Are we positioned for those coming [into IDRC] behind us? Their corporate real estate skill set will be about adding value and contributing to strategy.” Rees is senior vice president, Latin America, in Staubach’s Atlanta office and sits on IDRC’s Marketing Committee.

The fifth defining characteristic discussed in the report is IDRC’s research, which plays a key role in World Congress planning and in fostering professional development in the IDRC membership and in the profession at large. This characteristic is fundamental to the association; the research made available simply does not exist elsewhere. The report itself puts it best: “If IDRC were to give up its research capability, I could lose the support of those members who look to IDRC for cutting-edge management models.” Interestingly, in the year 2000, IDRC will have published 2,000 pages of research representing a monetary investment of nearly $2.5 million.

The research asset cannot be taken for granted, because it is so central to the association’s distinct, high-level niche in the profession. Investment in research has tapered since 1997, which is a situation that should be kept in check, the report urges, particularly with so many forces of change at work in the corporate real estate profession.

Outlook and Outreach

As active and associate IDRC members put their global strategies in place, the sixth defining characteristic comes into focus. IDRC made the commitment to be a global association serving members wherever their place of business may be. And IDRC is structured and governed in such a way as to ensure that members in Argentina and Australia have as much access to IDRC programs and other resources as do members in the U.S. and U.K. How important is that? Nearly one in five IDRC members reside outside the United States, according to the latest membership profile information.

Besides staff and chapter activity in place around the globe, IDRC disseminates a world of professional intelligence to members and the broader industry via its Web site (www.sitenet.com). Among the services available from the site are marketing and reference information, event schedules, publication and product sales and online registration for World Congresses and chapter meetings.

The seventh defining characteristic of IDRC is its commitment to getting the word out concerning the value it brings to the corporate real estate profession. The organization’s communications and public relations capabilities ensure that members in over 50 countries are kept abreast of association and industry developments and that others who should be aware of such information are kept in the know. Among the tools at the association’s disposal are the Web site, Site Selection magazine, The Communicator publication and targeted e-mails. A concerted public relations program further helps get the message to appropriate publications and other information distributors.

Financial Strength

An organization is only as effective as its human resources and its capital resources. The best ideas in the world remain ideas until they are put into effect. IDRC’s eighth defining characteristic is its financial strength – specifically, its cash reserve that in 1999 stood at 50 percent of annual operating expenses. The association has been able to draw on this reserve to respond to situations that require leadership from the industry’s leading association. Such was the case in the early 1990s, when IDRC invested in its seminal research program, Corporate Real Estate 2000. This program gave active members the tool with which to help them demonstrate strategic value in their organizations at a time when corporate real estate managers were increasingly viewed as expendable. Plenty of similar challenges lie ahead, which will require substantial human and capital commitments to keep the industry ship on course.