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epresentatives of 10 corporate real estate service provider companies left the International Development Research Council’s Florida World Congress in November with at least one item with which they did not arrive in Orlando. These people accepted the 2000 Site Selection/William Dorsey Service Provider Award on behalf of their organizations. This awards program, now in its second year, recognizes superior client service in the corporate real estate profession’s service provider community. (The late William Dorsey was a well-regarded site location consultant, most recently with Fluor Daniel, and a former official in Maine’s economic development office; he was an IDRC member for many years.)
Corporate real estate executives must manage a dizzying array of functions in the course of their work, from heading up a site search to negotiating lease terms to cultivating beneficial working relationships with business unit managers to overseeing the myriad players involved in a construction project, to name a few. Most would admit that they must routinely turn to outside experts for advice and for business solutions that help keep real estate strategy in synch with corporate objectives. Enter the service providers.
Standards of Excellence
Site Selection has chosen to honor these players, because their contribution to the profession at large is substantial. More specifically, service providers help their clients get a tough job done. As real estate executives grow more comfortable with the obvious overlap between real estate strategy and corporate strategy, they are demanding more of their service providers. They no longer want a commodity service obtainable from anywhere. They demand value-added services, a 24/7 commitment to partnering with clients and innovation in compensation schemes and in other routine aspects of the relationship. These are among the qualities that the Site Selection/William Dorsey Service Provider Awards showcase as examples of excellence in client service.
At the awards ceremony on Nov. 5th in Orlando, Site Selection Managing Editor Mark Arend officially recognized the recipients and presented the awards to them with the assistance of William Schaperkotter, Managing Director of Fluor Daniel’s Global Location Strategies consulting practice and a former colleague of Bill Dorsey. “These awards signify the standards that Bill worked so hard to achieve,” noted Schaperkotter. “He set very high standards for everyone he worked with, particularly in the areas of client focus, business strategy, common sense, and above all, leadership. These winners today exemplify these same standards of excellence.”
Competing organizations must complete an extensive questionnaire process that includes verifiable evidence of specific work. Contestants must demonstrate that they as an organization are expanding the definition of client service in the profession, and they must supply client contacts that can vouch for their success in doing so. Following is a recap of the event with highlights of the winning companies’ award-winning client service.
The Envelope, Please
BHP Korea Ltd. helped clients work through complex tax issues after the Korean government opened up the real estate market to foreign investors. The firm knew it would have to work quickly and expertly for clients to be able to take advantage of tax benefits where they applied-knowing where they did not apply was just as important. Additionally, property asset management is a relatively new field in Korea, where outmoded practices are still the norm. BHP Korea is ahead of the pack in introducing Western practices to the market, and clients are the beneficiaries.
Joanna Sung (above, left) , market research manager at BHP Korea Ltd., accepts a Site Selection/William Dorsey Service Provider Award from Bill Schaperkotter, managing director of Fluor Daniel’s Global Location Strategies consulting practice.
Work done on behalf of three main clients of CRESA Partners LLC was featured in that organization’s award submission. This includes new headquarters work for Yahoo! in Silicon Valley, expansion management at EMC2 Corp. in Massachusetts and project management work for Boston’s Liberty Mutual Group. The latter work involved overseeing a major headquarters expansion in Boston’ pricey Back Bay. Besides achieving substantial occupancy-cost savings relative to the market, CRESA provided “virtually seamless service,” according to the client, thanks in part to CRESA’s Web-based technology that fostered prompt responses to status inquiries and quality control.
Equis Corp. fully appreciates the importance of linking clients’ real estate strategies with their business objectives, and plenty of client input attest to that. But it was a series of concrete, money-saving initiatives executed for clients that caught the attention of the editorial panel considering submissions. These include identifying more than $260 million in potential capital release and redeployment into the core business of one client; a cost avoidance of nearly $17 million over a 1-year period following some relocation impact analysis; and creating of a financing structure that yielded present-value savings over 15 years of more than $23 million on a $60 million project.
Ernst & Young’s (E&Y) chairman has relaunched the firm’s Client Loyalty and Satisfaction System (CLASS), which is a seven-step best practice designed to ensure client satisfaction in all areas of the firm, include Real Estate Advisory Services. This process identifies clients who are not satisfied with some aspect of the service and turns the situation around. Clients testify to E&Y’s understanding of their business and use of technology to create a support environment for large projects.
Jones Lang LaSalle’s client satisfaction quantification process is exhaustive, ranging from benchmarking to post-transaction surveys to stewardship reviews. Just as important is the firm’s ability to partner with clients during the engagement, which is easier said than done. Says one client, “Jones Lang LaSalle does a good job of managing me and my expectations. The people on the account would kill for us. They are not just responsive, they are proactive-they know what I need before I do.” Another client credits the firm’s ability “to act like a partner, not a vendor, supporting and extending the capabilities of our own facilities professionals.”
Julien J. Studley is among the pioneers in the area of delivering customer service via technological means, and some low-tech means as well. After a transaction closes, Chairman Julien Studley writes a letter of thanks to the client and inquires about the level of service he received. Among the high-tech examples, the firm has packaged elements of its client service offering into what it calls The Studley Experience, which is a Web-based service that delivers advanced market information, demographic analysis and communications technologies. Another example is the Studley Ultranet, linking internal professionals, clients and third-party service providers.
Meyer Associates doesn’t just design space to look good and to help clients retain employees. It applies complex mathematical analyses to design the space according to the client’s real estate asset management requirements. It helps clients better manage their space in the long run by giving them tools they would not normally have access to. Clients also attest to Meyer’s “above-the-call-of-duty efforts” such as resolving disputes with manufacturers, making recommendations about different business processes and being available on a 24/7 basis during critical projects phases. The firm has expanded its role to include relocation management, IT consulting and project management.
Regus Business Centres offers a consistent work space product around the world. Clients cite consistently high quality space no matter where they require it globally. There are, of course, technological, people and location factors that make Regus competitive in its niche, but it is its vision of how client service is evolving and what approach will be necessary to address it that made the difference. Regus’s approach involves universal planning, meaning use of comparable standards at all business centers, and mass customization, meaning personalizing the standards for each client. Specific needs requested by a client in one location are carried through to his use of facilities in another location.
Pattillo Construction Co., a provider of industrial space, works routinely with subcontractors, but it never farms out vital components of its product and service offerings. This approach ensures quality control and consistently high levels of client service. Clients point to Pattillo’s ability to solve long-term space issues, production and flow challenges and other business matters in which they need advice. Rather than provider a client contact or two where require in the questionnaire, Pattillo Construction provided its entire client list with contacts as a testimony to its consistently strong client service.
WorkPlaceUSA is in the thick of some key telecommunications projects with the likes of WorldCom, for which it is developing and building 13 network information centers nationwide. And WorldCom knows a thing or two about telecommunications projects. With other clients, WorkPlaceUSA is rolling out client service initiatives in such areas as workplace technologies, customer relationship management, supply chain management, enterprise resource planning, e-commerce, communications and IT strategy. Clients interested in these areas are able to channel their human and other resources into their core business and let WorkPlaceUSA integrate these functions into their real estate strategy.
Congratulations to all of the winners of this year’s Site Selection/William Dorsey Service Provider Awards. The editors of Site Selection hope all organizations serving the corporate real estate profession will participate in next year’s awards program.
