CHICAGO- DTZ has announced a reorganization of their research arm including the appointment of Chicago-based Executive Vice President John Wickes as the head of the North American research department. The move will unify researchers who had worked for DTZ, which was acquired by UGL in late 2011 and Equis, a Chicago company bought by UGL in 2006.

“Sharing research was something we were all doing informally, trading data and so forth,” says Wickes, so in one sense the reorganization will just solidify existing procedures. But Wickes says they will still make big changes.

“Most of our energies are going to be devoted to thought leadership,” he explains, and providing the commercial real estate world with market forecasts rather than data analysis, although they will continue to do market reports. “People are craving the forward thinking pieces,” he adds, primarily because the slow and complicated recovery, which has had so many starts and sidesteps, has left so many unsure of the future. “You can read market reports all day long and not be any wiser. We want to give new insights, a forward-thinking view of the market, so when you pick [the research] up you're not looking in the rear view mirror.”