Convening for change is what this Global Summit is all about. So this event - bolstered by a turnout of at least 1,500 industry professionals - takes an appropriate look ahead in what appears to be an economy on the upswing.
The same views were incapsulated on a smaller but very concentrated scale in today's Executive Leaders Council Visioning Session.
Thanks to the facilitation team from Steelcase, more than 45 senior-level executives peered five years into the future as part of a brainstorming exercise to help CoreNet Global set its research agenda for 2010.
In terms of 2009, Lori Gee of Herman Miller opened the dialogue with an important observation. "We are at a break point," or a pivotal moment, she insisted, pointing to a change in the way the corporate real estate (CRE) industry is viewing the current moment.
It underscores a 'freeing up' mentality that is allowing decision makers, planners, service partners, economic developers and others to return to a value creation mode, perhaps at least lessening the overwhelming feeling of value protection that - like uncertainty - characterized the downturn.
The Las Vegas discussion points to a growing willingness to address some big changes to the CRE model.
As 2009 confirmed, the hot buttons in this transition period surround the portfolio, workplace and a more blended, higher-level skill set for CRE executives.
Mapping Context
The group engaged in a context-mapping exercise broken down into five discussion tables. Here are some of the key views expressed at one of them.
The participants decided to focus on the CRE industry itself, because it ties CoreNet Global's ability to serve or support the industry. So in this sense, CoreNet Global will need to change with the industry by understanding how member-practitioners are responding to the demands of fast-changing business and service delivery models within their companies.
The level of priority in a hierarchy of drivers is the customer, as two senior-level corporate end users advised. "The C-Suite is where identify our primary customer," commented Restor Johnson of United Health, suggesting that CRE's ability to effectively relate to the C-Suite is critical when top management relies on CRE to help guide the enterprise. That makes the C-Suite a primary internal customer in this and a growing number of other cases.
Converesly, Google does not view its primary customer from the top-down. "For us, it's our employees," said David Radcliff of Google. "We're very bottom-up."
Either way, depending on the company or industry, CRE people primarily view their clients as the C-Suite, employees and external customers.