CBRE’s new research, C-Suite Perspectives, finds that leaders see real estate as a strategic opportunity with latent potential to deliver value to businesses.
Leaderships appreciation of real estate is growing, but there is significant potential for it to further support business strategy, according to CBRE’s inaugural C-Suite Perspectives report.
- Most respondents (94%) see real estate as important to achieving business objectives
- Half of C-Suite leaders said that real estate will become more important over the next three years
- 76% want more personal influence or involvement in real estate decisions
C-Suite Perspectives, which canvassed the views of 252 C-Suite leaders across Europe and the US, found that 94% of respondents see real estate as important to achieving core business objectives. According to the research, half of leaders see real estate becoming more important over the next three years, with Chief Executive Officers and Chief Operating Officers (63%) holding this view more strongly. At a sector level, 81% of manufacturing firms anticipate real estate will grow in importance, indicating that they are poised to manage their real estate assets much more proactively than they have in the past.
When asked how their real estate signifies their company’s culture, the vast majority of respondents (94%) believe that it has a critical or very important role to play and furthermore, 72% said real estate is having a positive impact in achieving core objectives.
CBRE’s research found that leaders want their teams to have the best work environments. Elements that enable adaptability, resilience and continuity, such as increased lease flexibility, cost saving opportunities and better performance metrics are top priorities.
To extract the most out of their real estate, leaders have become closer to it, with direct reporting lines for corporate real estate teams becoming the norm. Almost all (97%) respondents have a globally or regionally centralised real estate function with a reporting line into the C-Suite, of which 60% is direct.
More than two thirds (68%) of C-Suite leaders said direct reporting lines had been initiated since the pandemic, reflecting the increased alignment of real estate with supporting business transformation. There is a desire to optimise reporting structures further, with 77% of those who currently have an indirect reporting line to the C-Suite intending to switch to direct reporting in the future.
Despite widespread reconfiguration of reporting lines in recent years, there is still unmet demand from C-Suite leaders for more influence over real estate decisions. 76% of respondents said that they want more personal influence or involvement, as real estate becomes key in supporting businesses growth plans and enabling business resilience.
Want to know more?
Download the full report here
