Even when the economy was absolutely booming, we advocated a lean and mean approach to real estate. That's why this blog is titled, "Less is More". Now however, many political obstacles to reaching Lean & Mean objectives have been removed. The corporate real estate director (in virtually all corporations large enough to have corporate real estate directors), now likely has complete buy-in from both the finance and operations executives AND field staff.

Surprising to some, the greatest obstacles for a firm to achieve significant cost savings and positioning their real estate as a competitive advantage traditionally were internal political obstacles, not market ones. Objections such as, "We have to be in the high-rent financial district because that's where our competitors are located", "We have to have Class A space to compete when hiring staff", and "Have you seen the finishes in the St. Louis office? If they get that then certainly we should too" are now out on the street, often along with the staff who were crying them. Today's real estate strategy is all about utilization, cutting costs and most importantly, focusing on efficiency.

Now is the opportunity for your company to make great headway in knocking down the barriers that prevented you from being effective in the past. These are four top areas to consider:

• Space Standards - Certainly, the "across the board" private office dimensions are being cut. Even more important, however, we're seeing firms building in overall goals based on employee count (for office) and cubic feet of storage utilization (for warehouse) that give companies flexibility to adapt to the abundance of 2nd generation space now available.
• RE Process - Timelines for nearly every real estate process have reduced except, perhaps, for subleasing your excess space. Pressure from the C level is forcing managers to make faster decisions and offer less resistance to change. Now is the time to cast these timelines in stone as a matter of corporate policy. When we come out of the cycle, a quick process should be your standard.
• Creative Opportunities - Sharing space with other divisions, consolidating branches, break freights versus full distribution centers, sales rooms with shared counters rather than dedicated workstations. All of these scenarios are smart ways to keep costs low. If you have written real estate objectives (you should) incorporate the particular ideas that can work for your firm as part of your standard project analysis. You'll be glad you did five years from now.
• Operations/Finance Cooperation - In a fast growth company, the operations group rules. When the company hits the wall, the finance group wields the most power. In reality, there should be a balance between the two. Now is a good time to set up an approval/real estate request process that will make sure that both groups are involved in all projects from conception. Nothing sabotages a process more often that one side being out of the loop and then surprised after the other has been moving in a particular direction for several months.

Get your corporate objectives back in line. It will never be easier that it is now.  Political opposition to strategies that will save the company money are minimal right now and, of course, Less is More.