Positioning corporate real estate to drive competitive advantage and facilitate corporate goals

Actively managing a corporate real estate (CRE) portfolio as a strategic asset may not ‘make’ the profit and loss (P&L) but failing to do so can certainly break it. A robust CRE function enhances the organisation’s competitive stance, enabling it to control costs and step up rapidly to embrace new business opportunities. This paper is directed to senior executives whose remit is to foresee and then mitigate risk to the business as well as to periodically benchmark the return on investment of company assets as marked to market. It urges senior management, especially chief financial officers (CFOs), to recognise the value and risk of CRE and to involve their CRE team in asset strategy planning. It draws on the authors’ experience and conversations with CRE leaders, as well as examples of how a strong CRE function can mitigate risk, enhance the corporation’s competitive advantage, seize opportunities, realise hidden value and staunch bleeding P&Ls. It outlines a model structure for corporations seeking to position the corporate real estate function to control risk and participate in asset strategy planning for real estate assets they own or lease in support of their core business. The paper’s premise is that CRE is a strategic asset whose cost, deployment of capital and risk demand an appropriately active management model that promotes business goals and protects against the significant risks inherent in these long-term, illiquid assets. Nonetheless, in many organisations, real estate is handled as a routine administrative function and static cost centre far removed from senior decision makers. Target audiences are CFOs, controllers and private equity operating partners typically in medium-sized companies that are planning or undergoing significant growth, leading to increasing complexity, growing portfolios and higher transaction volumes. It is equally appropriate for executives who insist on being actively involved in real estate decisions to protect their P&Ls and forestall being ‘stuck’ with either too expensive, poorly located or ill-configured real estate with few options to fix it. The concepts described also apply to companies with larger portfolios that need to exert oversight and/or cost control due to evolving market conditions.