Bookmarks: 5 Interesting Articles That May Help You This Week

Each week, I select a few articles that rise above the fray and hopefully help you on your journey in the CRE world. They pull from one of four "corners:" corporate real estate, technology, management science and anything positive. I welcome your comments on these articles.

1. Founders of Cushman & Wakefield’s Atlanta Office Reunite for Panel

In order to know where a company is headed, it is important to understand where it came from. At Cushman & Wakefield Atlanta’s recent monthly All-Team meeting, we assembled a panel of the four founders of our office and former Managing Principal Mike Elting to share the history of the firm, the importance of culture and talk about some of their landmark deals.

Cushman & Wakefield’s Atlanta operations began when the firm acquired the successful local brokerage operation of Bugg, Coppedge, Ghertner & McWilliams (“BCGM”) on November 4, 1977. BCGM was comprised of top producers – Bill Bugg, John Coppedge, Andy Ghertner and Art McWilliams – formerly with Adair Realty Co., at that time Atlanta’s oldest commercial real estate firm.

“When we were first approached by Cushman & Wakefield, we asked to visit other offices and see what the people who worked here were like out in the field,” Coppedge said. “It was the smartest thing we did. When we visited, we saw that those employees were our people, and we knew when we came back that we wanted to make the deal.”

2. Put Purpose at the Core of Your Strategy

Eight years ago we launched a global study of high growth in companies, investigating the importance of three strategies known to drive it: creating new markets, serving broader stakeholder needs, and changing the rules of the game. What we found surprised us. Although each of those approaches did boost growth at the organizations we studied, there was a fourth driver we hadn’t considered at all: purpose.

Companies have long been encouraged to build purpose into what they do. But usually it’s talked about as an add-on—a way to create shared value, improve employee morale and commitment, give back to the community, and help the environment.

But as we worked with the high-growth companies in our study and beyond, we began to recognize that many of them had moved purpose from the periphery of their strategy to its core—where, with committed leadership and financial investment, they had used it to generate sustained profitable growth, stay relevant in a rapidly changing world, and deepen ties with their stakeholders.

3. Burglars Are Following You on Facebook

When my daughter’s wedding drew the family out of town for an extended weekend, I should have realized that my home’s security was as fragile as the family’s emotions.

The mail and the six newspapers I receive each day were dutifully picked up by a neighbor. A few lights were strategically left on in the house. The alarm system was engaged. Yet as I was getting set to walk Stephanie down the aisle, my cellphone vibrated with news from the alarm company that our house was experiencing an active burglary. The culprit, I’m convinced, was social media.

Our newly married daughter has absorbed a few words of my wisdom over the years, but I’ve never been able to modify her behavior when it comes to PDA: public displays of addresses. Her life is an open Facebook.

4. Future Warehouses Will Have to Accommodate Robots Too

The average rentable building area for newly delivered warehouse product has increased by 60% nationally over the past 20 years, according to a recent report from Cushman & Wakefield. Partly this size increase is due to the larger inventories warehouses must accommodate for e-commerce flows. But another tech driver is in the mix as well: robots.

C&W believes that clearer differentiations in asset quality are likely to emerge as some technologies—such as robotics—require higher ceilings (32 to 36 feet clear) and very flat floors. In short, this means that the warehouse of the future will not just be built for people but also for robots, C&W concluded.

“Redesign of warehouses will likely include repurposing employee parking and break rooms which could be converted to logistics space, increasing the built inventory,” it said. Widespread adoption of these technologies is expected to occur within the next 5-20 years, it estimates but also acknowledges that resistance from labor groups will likely slow automation.

5. Your Expense Report Is a Window Into Your Soul

What does your expense report say about you?

Filing business-expense reports is a slam dunk for road warriors who submit them often, or have assistants to do it for them. But for the rest of us—the majority of filers who submit expense claims only a few times a year—the task can be one of the worst parts of a job.

How people handle expense reports reveals a lot about their attitudes toward their employer, and their emotional baggage about money. Based on corporate research and insights from psychologists, here are a few common expense-reporting profile.

Your success blesses others. I wish you a great a hugely impactful week!

Ken Ashley