Tomorrow's Office Space May Not Be an Office

NEW YORK CITY-”We’re going to go back to much simpler surfaces to work. The concept of being tethered to a desk will go, and go quickly,” says Phillip Ross, CEO of the UK-based Cordless Group.

To a tradition-bound C-level executive, this prediction might suggest a nightmare future of unstructured workplaces bordering on anarchy. In fact, Ross and his fellow panelists at a recent presentation here, sponsored by CoreNet Global’s New York chapter, were discussing ways in which new and emerging technologies will continue to transform how–and where–people work. This transformation has enormous implications for corporate real estate.

Already, said panelist George Bouri of Deloitte Consulting, real estate decisions are being driven less by CRE managers and more by CIOs. The transformation does not render CRE professionals obsolete, he said, but represents a new language they must learn. Conversely, technology service providers must learn to understand the corporate environment and speak in terms that CRE professionals can relate to.