Trammell Crow Co.'s Outsourcing Services unit (TCCOS at www.trammellcrow.com) - a recently named winner of one of the prestigious Best Practices Awards presented by the International Development Research Council, (IDRC) - has added another major feather in the cap of its corporate portfolio: Microsoft recently selected TCCOS to provide comprehensive facilities management services for the new Microsoft Silicon Valley campus in Mountain View, Calif.

The assignment has more than a little cyber-prestige. Microsoft's Silicon Valley campus will house Hotmail and WebTV, two of Microsoft's key subsidiaries.

The campus will consist of five two-story buildings with a total floor space of 515,000 sq. ft. (46,350 sq. m.). All five buildings are scheduled to be fully operational and occupied by March of 2000.

Microsoft: Corporate Culture Fit, 'Integrated
Service Delivery' Major Factors in Selection

Explained Mary Dixon, Microsoft's Product Group account manager, "Microsoft's selection of TCCOS to perform the facilities management services at [our Silicon Valley campus] was based on a number of factors.

"We felt comfortable with TCCOS's integrated service delivery model and their performance of comparable services at other sites," Dixon continued. "We know that TCCOS fits with our company culture from both current and prior assignments."

TCCOS's involvement with Microsoft began in 1992. The corporate outsourcing services arm of Dallas-based Trammell Crow Co. currently provides Microsoft with brokerage, construction management and project management services in western Washington and property management and lease administration services throughout North America.

Said Tom Lindquist, executive vice president of the Western Region of TCC's Outsourcing Services group, "We appreciate the opportunity to continue to grow our relationship with Microsoft. Our team is very focused on the service and cost goals established by Microsoft."

TCCOS's Winning Best Practices Partnership

TCCOS's corporate partnering efforts were honored earlier this year at the Best Practices Awards presentations that were held at IDRC's Tennessee World Congress.

TCCO's Best Practices Award in Leadership came from its effort in a team that included Steelcase, RSP Architects and UnitedHealth's corporate real estate arm.

The TCCO/Steelcase/RSP Architects partnership with UnitedHealth corporate real estate had its origins in 1996's merger of United HealthCare and MetraHealth. That corporate union presented huge challenges within the combined real estate portfolio, including duplicate locations, fragmented service delivery, varying workstation sizes and quality, and divergent information infrastructures.

UnitedHealth's Corporate Real Estate Services unit filled that void, adding substantial value by centralizing the company's real estate functions. UnitedHealth's nine-member real estate unit also developed long-term strategic alliances with TCCOS for project/facilities management; with Steelcase's Furniture Management Coalition for furniture asset management, and with RSP Architects for design.

Reflecting IDRC's emphasis on corporate infrastructure integration, UnitedHealth's Corporate Real Estate Services unit also established in-house partnerships with information technology, human resources and procurement services.

Numerous positive benefits came from that multi-faceted alliance strategy, including:

• overall facility management fees 30 percent below the standards established by the Building Owners and Managers Assn. International (www.boma.org),
• $5.6 million savings in furniture management and
• a national design-fee matrix 15 below market rates.

And with the Best Practices-winning strategy in place, UnitedHealth's Corporate Real Estate Services can now simultaneously manage 90-plus projects and still adjust its workload by 50 percent without disruption.