Panel: Corporate Outsourcing Evolves

NEW YORK CITY—Outsourcing of corporate real estate functions is evolving even as it grows more prevalent, panelists said at a CoreNet Global presentation Friday. Greater transparency as well as a sense of collaboration between corporate clients and service providers were two of the key trends spotlighted by the panel, which was divided among in-house corporate real estate managers and outside providers.

“You’ve got to have some transparency about the P&L of what’s going on here” in executing a corporate real estate strategy, said Alan Scott, managing director and Americas regional head of corporate real estate services for Deutsche Bank. Scott and other panelists cited cost pressures on corporate real estate functions—one of the reasons companies are outsourcing some functions to begin with.

David Arena, president of Grubb & Ellis New York and himself a former corporate real estate insider, commented that “the outsourcing business is as hot as can be. In firms like ours, outsourcing is actually making up for the deceleration in transactions.”