There are many ways to organise a property function, however, at the core are a set of services and functions that we categorise across the three standard management layers.

Pyramid infograph

What's Included

What is included in each layer and the volume of activity in each will vary depending on your portfolio and whether you are an owner or tenant or both.

A summary of each layer and how it adds value to the business is as follows:

Layer What's Included How it adds value
Strategic

Developing short, medium and long-term plans for each business group. Working with business managers to understand their plans and forecast future demand for property.

The further out you can plan for property, the better deals you can do. Anticipating increases or decreases in demand also ensures you don’t end up with surplus property or property in the wrong location.

Transactional

Lease transactions and other real estate deals that execute on the business strategy. Project management of fit-outs, new builds, moves or changes in accommodation.

Knowing the market and having enough time to plan and leverage the best deals. Aligning deal structure to ensure the most flexibility at the best possible price.

Operational

Facilities services including repairs and maintenance, cleaning, waste management, help desk, subcontract management, data management and financial management.

Managing risks and having an operation that minimises the impact on day-to-day business operations. Clear and transparent processes that balance service quality with an appropriate cost. Data that you can actually use.

Structuring your property function

There are a number of ways to structure your property function and in some respects its 'horses for courses' but there are some sound methodologies for determining the 'right' fit for you.

Through Grosvenor's extensive experience and proven modelling we can assist you in developing the optimal property function for your organisation.

Property function and team diagnostic

Organisational structure and design

Centralise or decentralise

Contracting and outsourcing

Benchmarking and better practice

Where to Start?
THE SITUATION ANALYSIS

Following initial discussions, the Situation Analysis is how we start most engagements.

The Situation Analysis workshop, which typically runs for 3 hours, commences with an educational session on cutting edge procurement practices that drive real savings and marked supplier performance improvements. We’ll also discuss in broad terms projects we’ve undertaken with organisations similar to yours and how we have helped them achieve their goals.

We will then perform a three step diagnosis:

Diagnostic 1: Understand your customers

  1. What are the business objectives outlined in your organisation's business plan?
  2. How can procurement deliver against each business objective?

Diagnostic 2: Understand your spend

  1. Based on your general ledger data we will run high level spend analysis to understand who you are spending money with, how much, when and on what.
  2. We will then identify where your biggest savings opportunities are.

Diagnostic 3: Understand current capabilities and maturity

  1. We will ask a series of questions from our better practice comparator to understand the capability of your procurement team, systems and processes.
  2. We then identify how your function can deliver against the opportunities identified during the Situation Analysis.

On completion, we will provide you with a high-level 3-4-page Situation Analysis (we all love brevity) that aligns procurement’s strategic direction with your overall business strategy. It will outline the short and long-term steps you need to take to ensure your procurement function is best practice and the right fit for your organisation now and into the future.

The only provisos for this workshop are:

  • All attendees read the ‘Procurement Manifesto’
  • Your CFO, COO and CPO are present.
  • Our travel costs are covered if applicable

If you’d like more information or would like to undertake a Situation Analysis complete the form and we’ll be in contact shortly.

Necessary evil or strategic asset?

A guide to building high performance property portfolios

Like maximising the performance of your staff, maximising the performance of your property accommodation portfolio is far more complicated than simple cost management.

For example, well managed property can also add value to your business through increased productivity, reduced staff turnover and absenteeism and by reduced risks and insurance costs.

Additionally, by managing property more strategically you can enhance your brand to both customers and to potential new staff.

Conversely, poorly managed property can actually detract from your brand and most importantly impede actual business performance.

This then begs the question, if property is such a large part of the business cost base and there are all these potential benefits and pitfalls, then why doesn’t it get the same level of management attention as HR or IT?

Find out why and how to implement positive change through proven property portfolio management strategies.

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