_CRE Leadership Perspectives on 2020 and Beyond
Despite a slowing economy, India’s office markets remain the fastest growing in Asia Pacific, bolstered by the abundance of talent in India’s IT sector. As real estate plays an important role in attracting and retaining this tech talent, CRE heads face new challenges as we enter into the next decade: the entry of a new generation into the workforce; growing concerns about sustainability in the workplace; the proliferation of technology like AI, machine learning, blockchain and more.
Sathish Rajendren, COO of Facility Management Services, Knight Frank India speaks to CRE heads from NTT, Cisco, Samsung, and Linkedin about their priorities for 2020 and what trends they think will have the greatest impact on their corporate real estate needs moving forward.
Q. Tell us about your role in your organisation.
My position at NTT Global Sourcing is Vice President of Global Indirects Sourcing. My scope covers Corporate Real Estate, Data Center Infrastructure and Civil construction, Goods & Services and Payment Solutions. In addition, I am a key member of the Smart Building and Digital Real Estate Transformation Think Tank driving NTT to develop an eco-system with better sourcing to be a market leader.
Q. What will be your highest priority initiatives for the workplace for 2020, and what are the drivers behind them?
We are focusing in a major way on the transformation of real estate workplace as a company. Our approach is unique, given we are building an ecosystem that supports internal deployment with a key element of providing the same to our customers as a service. Our aim is to drive the following:
1. Develop a connected workplace strategy across our real estate portfolio
2. Focus on creating a workplace strategy and design standards guide to ensure we build by promoting our brand’s people, value, vision and culture
3. Standardizing the global supplier base to deliver best in class products and services to help us build this vision for the company
4. Optimize cost of services to manage our real estate assets
5. Engage technology as part of our employee workplace services scope, creating the platform for a connected workplace.
6. Focus on delivering a world class employee experience and wellness forming part of this transformation journey
7. Our leadership and business executives believe strongly in investing to make real estate a key platform for employee engagement and retention – not just as a brick and mortar office setup.
Q. What trends do you see having the most impact on your corporate real estate needs and why?
For me, there are some basic areas moving into 2020 and beyond that impact our needs:
1. What level of automation will clients and NTT companies drive as part of business operations and delivery of services? This seems to be an area that can impact real estate needs. One has to separate the impact on onshore vs offshore / nearshore real estate since they operate and provide services based on different size and scale.
2. Workplace strategy is a key differentiator for a company to focus on real estate expansion and reduction.
3. Real estate consolidation driven by cost impact to the business profitability is a key measure for companies to evaluate, but these have a mid- to long-term play.
4. Leveraging more co-working companies to help manage flex-space provision as part of the larger real estate strategy will become more integrated in the strategy even more than today.
5. Remote home worker programs can impact the need for real estate, given the strategy will have an impact on the type of space one has to create.
Q. Tell us about your role in your organisation.
As Cisco’s Head of Real Estate for Asia Pacific, I manage real estate transactions and lease administration activities across the region.
Q. What will be your highest priority initiatives for the workplace for 2020, and what are the drivers behind them?
The key focus is to optimise and improve workplace experience in a dynamic business environment, globally and regionally, which drives speed in delivery as well. With lease accounting standards being adopted, quite a lot of efforts are put forth in partnering with corporate finance to ensure compliance.
Q. What trends do you see having the most impact on your corporate real estate needs and why?
Digitisation has been a focus area for many corporates. With lot of data around, having meaningful analysis to guide decisions is powerful. Flexible offerings are another trend that many markets and landlords will strive towards, but it’s always tricky with supply and demand.
Q. Tell us about your role in your organisation.
I currently head CRE, Facilities, Physical Security and EHS for Samsung Semiconductor India Research, located at Bangalore. In this role, I have completed the interior fit-outs for 500,000 sq ft of space and have built from scratch a team of 11 members to manage the above mentioned functions along with employee transport and travel. The facilities function comprises of hard and soft services within the floor plate.
Q. What will be your highest priority initiatives for the workplace for 2020, and what are the drivers behind them?
My top initiatives for 2020 will be sustainability, enhancing employee experience and analytics.
Sustainability: At Samsung, we have a lot of labs, and samples are brought in abundance, which brings in single use plastic. It is critical for us to evaluate reduction of single use plastic to protect the environment.
Enhancing employee experience: The premises being less than a year old has been incorporated with the needs of Gen Z and millennials. However, as we bring in more lateral hires and after existing employees have spent a year in the space, it will be critical for me as a CRE leader to evaluate how do I enhance the experience and rope in new ideas.
Analytics: We have invested on BMS, and it has generated enough data over the last 6-8 months and one of the top focus areas for me in the coming year will be analysing the data, which should help me in planning for further investment areas to increase productivity/ reduce energy consumption.
In addition to the above, as a leader, my focus is also to build critical skills and strengthen the current and future bench strength of my CRE and facilities vertical. I have encouraged each of my team members to be a part of forums they think is relevant and aim for one certification in the next 2 years.
Q. What trends do you see having the most impact on your corporate real estate needs and why?
I feel AI and blockchain are some of the top trends to have a great impact on CRE needs. AI along with machine learning is entering every space, and it’s not far away that we will have a business analyst as a specialist role for CRE within the organisation itself. The program manager role is becoming popular and will continue to trend in 2020. Blockchain is much talked about and could change the way property valuations and leases are conducted.
Q. Tell us about your role in your organisation.
As the LinkedIn India Head for Workplace Services, I spearhead the entire gamut of operations related to workplace services in Linkedin’s offices in Bangalore, Mumbai, and Gurgaon.
Q. What will be your highest priority initiatives for the workplace for 2020, and what are the drivers behind them?
Our highest priorities for 2020 are: designing employee experience initiatives to support talent retention; innovating to maximize space utilization; and supporting innovation which improves user experience and business processes.
Q. What trends do you see having the most impact on your corporate real estate needs and why?
In India, one emerging challenge is the lack of availability of real estate to suit rapid business expansion. The development of real estate is typically limited to key locations like Outer Ring Road and Whitefield –areas which are not of a great help to companies as they often have infrastructure issues like long commutes for workers, pollution, small floor plates, and more.
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There are lots of lessons to be learned from the forward-looking approaches of CRE leaders from Samsung, Cisco, Linkedin, and NTT as we move into 2020, like the importance of enhancing the employee experience to suit a new generation of workers and the usage of real estate as a driver for connectivity and innovation.
For more insights into the trends shaping the global workplace, download the (Y)OUR SPACE report.