Christopher Heywood

The sustainable competitive advantage model for corporate real estate

Purpose – This purpose of this paper is to propose a model for the relationship between corporate real estate management (CREM) practices and an organisations sustainable competitive advantage. Corporate real estate (CRE) plays an important but poorly recognised role in organisational competitiveness.Design/methodology/approach – The model was developed from the strategic management, organisational competitiveness, and CRE literatures. A total of 162 CREM practices from the literature were connected, where possible, with cost, innovation and differentiation sources of sustainable competitive advantage. Clustering similar practices allowed the summarising of competitive effects in those clusters and each of the sources of sustainable competitive advantage. Technical CREM practices were the focus of analysis as they constitute the traditional core of CREM.Findings – Many gaps were identified in the theoretical connections between practices and sources of sustainable competitive advantage. Overall, cost dom...

Raising facilities management’s profile in organisations: Developing a world‐class framework

Leading organisations expect that all business processes, including facilities management (FM), achieve world‐class standards. This paper presents the results of an international, collaborative investigation, on behalf of a UK‐based blue chip company and a member of the Facilities Management Foundation, to identify organisations that are recognised as exemplars of world‐class FM (WCFM) and to understand the processes that underpin world‐class performance. Much FM practice remains cost focused, rooted in operations and concerned primarily with maintaining the steady‐state position of an organisation. In contrast, most authors propose that facilities should be strategically planned, aligned to business needs and demonstrate contribution to achieving explicit business objectives. They argue for a common language and for conditions that ensure that facilities add value to the business. Very little is known about how these conditions are created in different organisational contexts. The paper describes a heuristic study of three cases, selected as exemplars of WCFM, focusing on the underlying processes. Project partners in Australia, Norway and the UK conducted the case studies to a common brief. The paper presents the framework that was created to enable comparison of FM processes in the case studies and a matrix of business drivers and FM outputs that was adapted for the project. The investigation identifies three FM roles ‐ as translator, processor and demonstrator. Facilities management identifies business needs and translates strategy into workplaces, owns the processes of providing those workplaces and demonstrates their impact on organisational outcomes. The paper develops a WCFM framework to provide a management tool for considering and relating FM projects at different levels in an organisation. The study highlights the importance of reframing FM projects as business projects, and concludes that participation at senior management, business unit and individual levels in the organisation is an important factor in obtaining value. The study also highlights the need for effective change management processes continually to adapt the workplace to changing business needs, and shows how FM provides value through sustaining the organisation through business cycles.

Viable urban redevelopments -- exchanging equity for energy efficiency

This research paper examines the potential of urban refurbishment projects to accommodate ambitious low-energy solutions. This can be made possible by aligning the interests of the community (energy conservation) and owner (increased value) through redeveloping the land owned by present residents being used as equity to finance the low-energy upgrades to existing dwellings. This holistic view of urban redevelopment is presented as a financial analysis model. In the paper a real-life case of the Siltamaki suburb in Helsinki, Finland, is presented and analysed. The approach used to interpret the case is the Public-Private-People Partnership (4P). It was found that the developed model allows several different scenarios to be presented for decision-making without compromising any of the stakeholders financial interests and, that owner-occupiers can, as a result, have new energy efficient refurbishment options. The originality of this paper lies in the way the owner-occupiers’ viewpoint is included in a refurbishment and redevelopment process.

A method for performance briefing at the project inception stage

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to create a strategically positioned client performance brief with a clear and workable statement of the project requirements specified by a representative group of stakeholders.Design/methodology/approach – The application describes the relocation of a library with community facilities with a local council. This action research study of the project inception stages used the process of strategic needs analysis (SNA). This approach uses a workshop setting involving stakeholders in identifying a range of strategic options for the project problem. The development of a range of realistic options was aided by the use of a problem‐ structuring computer program, Situation Structuring. Individual workshop participants then expressed their preferences for the final options using a second software package (Strategizer) and after a short period for analysis the results were presented to a second workshop for discussion. The performance brief was then prepared to reflect stake...

A new customer‐oriented participation method for communicative planning

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the identification and engagement of future inhabitants in urban planning processes using a new “public–private–people partnerships (4Ps)” participation method, where public, private and people are in partnership. This form of participation gives new information, related to consumers’ residential choice, unlike those environments produced by using other participation methods.Design/methodology/approach – The empirical study is based in innovation theory where end‐users are primary stakeholders in the innovation process, and even innovators themselves. A case study of a new participation method based on a two‐phase internet questionnaire is used to research practical solutions in integrating end‐users into urban planning process.Findings – This paper demonstrates that the widely used theory of communicative action in planning and its aim of increasing citizens’ activity in planning and development processes can be developed to the stage that it also includes future inha...

Investigating demand-side stakeholders’ ability to mainstream sustainability in residential property

Abstract Current sustainability approaches in the residential property sector for new home construction are deficient, yet crucial in reducing reliance on finite resources whilst providing better social outcomes. At present, efforts to improve dwelling sustainability are inhibited: as sustainability is considered an overly expensive additional extra; there is poor implementation of energy efficiency regulations; un-empowered consumers are unable to demand sustainability and consumers distrust the suppliers of sustainable initiatives. This research addresses an important issue to eliminate the “blame game” and transform the sustainability conversation, adoption and value in new home markets. It adopts an innovative demand-side approach to the residential property sector, in order to target large-scale standardised new home producers as the pivotal, demand-side player in mainstreaming sustainable solutions in new housing. By examining the sector from this new perspective, sustainability can be mainstreamed in the new housing property sector overcoming current inhibitors to sustainability adoption and implementation.

Corporate real estate management's credibility‐positioning status: Preliminary investigation of a branding model in practice

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce concepts of branding applicable to the corporate real estate management (CREM) service and present early results of a study of branding concepts to address a credibility‐positioning problem in CREM.Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents case studies of CREM in Australia and Malaysia analysed from the branding perspective.Findings – It is found that the CREM credibility‐positioning problem inside organisations depends not only on the technical performance of CREM service, but also involves the relationship between CREM and its customers.Research limitations/implications – These are the early results of a study limited to a few case studies selected from four industry sectors in two different countries. Further findings might explain cross‐cultural perceptions for CREMs credibility‐positioning in emerging and mature real estate markets.Practical implications – The research clearly identified the application of branding elements in CREMs relatio...

Alignment and theory in Corporate Real Estate alignment models

This paper deepens the understanding of Corporate Real Estate (CRE) alignment through a meta-study of twenty existing alignment models. A qualitative hermeneutic method interpreted the models and their articles. This holistic analysis found alignment to be more complex and pluralistic than the individual models assumed. Four dimensions operating simultaneously were evident – a multi-valent relationship, multiple alignment forms, multiple cognitive objects to align and alignment in multiple directions. Alignment theorisation had positive and negative aspects. Positive is that good science was evident and had improved over time. Negative is that model theorisation had occurred mostly in isolation and was constrained by simplifications required to make modelling tractable. The research makes a meta-theoretical contribution through a more complete theorisation of CRE alignment as a phenomenon. This addresses a disordered sense to prior theory thereby representing a major conceptual improvement. A new alignment model is not proposed; rather through developed understanding a basis is provided to examine alignment in both theorisation and practice.

Aspects of Life Cycle Investing for Sustainable Refurbishments in Australia

Refurbishing existing buildings to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is important in meeting Australian government aspirational targets of a minimum of 25% by 2020. Previous studies of such refurbishments tend to provide only general upgrade, cost and investment advice because they apply generic building attributes and location criteria. They also ignore life cycle aspects such as component assets being replaced at the end of their service life and sustainability investments are over-and-above these ‘normal’ investments. This research investigates an appropriate methodology for more realistic evaluations of refurbishments and life cycle investment to upgrade buildings to 5 to 6-stars on the NABERS Australian energy rating system. The methodology is presented and discussed as a suite of inputs, simulation tools, and outputs. Preliminary results from ongoing work illustrate the outputs and their interrelatedness.

Enabling processes for strategic outcomes: CRE in the Australian private and public sectors

Abstract Private as well as public sector organisations now recognise the contribution that CRE makes to enabling the processes that lead to desired strategic outcomes. Here a focus group study is described that identifies issues in Australian CRE, contrasting the public and private sectors. Building on this, the authors present a strategic facilities management tool that was developed as a major initiative with eight local government partners in Victoria, Australia. Quantitative as well as qualitative data is contributed by multiple stakeholders via a centralised database that is accessible over the Internet, thereby facilitating access from multiple points as well as benchmarking. Indicators relate to strategically important aspects of facility performance and can be weighted according to their strategic importance.