Description

New opportunities in quality assurance offer a way out of the increasingly aggressive price wars. For tenants, the added value of customer benefit is measurable not only in building quality, but also in flexibility and economic efficiency – and in the quality of service with respect to every aspect of the office workplace. As a rule, a new site is supposed to be economical and to increase the tenant organisation’s efficiency and productivity. The price per square meter for unheated space is less important than the tenant organisation’s overhead, i.e. the cost per employee when the building is heated, finished to specifications, and flexibly operated with cost-efficient servicing for everything that is not part of the occupant’s core business. In the quality battle, the land­lord can turn the tables by transforming himself from a mere builder and office-space provider into problem solver and service provider for models of work organsiation. The change of roles requires a new way of thinking and adaptation of approaches appropriate to the new challenges. These approaches range from product profiling through marketing that is oriented towards in­vestor/occupant benefit, to service-oriented building operation.

The goals are:

• to create project development value by site- and product profiling;

• to optimise customer benefit oriented towards target groups in the market;

• to position the building using competitive advantages oriented towards target groups;

• to involve potential tenants early in the planning;

• to assure and increase the value of the building.

Product profiling as a basis for planning

As a first step, market and competition-oriented goals and criteria related to the success of the occupant’s project have to be developed and rendered more precise. The goals – with measurable criteria and precise instructions – should become the specifications for the planning. The most important sales arguments are conceived in the product profiling phase: requirements relating to site synergy, economies of space, flexibility of rental units, building grids and finishing grids, location route management, occupancy capacity, modularity of lighting design, sanitary core flexibility, climatic comfort, building automation, ecological sustainability, acoustic insulation options, flexibility with regard to permits, operation of parking space, security systems, range of services offered, etc.

The requirements relating to structure, flexibility, building technology, work environment, interior fixtures and fittings, etc. are oriented towards the strategic goals determined by market analysis and economic efficiency. The result is a continuing control principle for the building process, with the aid of which the marketing opportunities can be optimised in all project phases.

An example: specifications with regard to flexibility

The aim of building flexibility is to be able to react easily to new occupancy requirements and the aging of a building system whose subsystems have different lifecycles. The shorter the life­cycle of a subsystem, the more likely it is that a change of technology will be necessary.

For this reason, subsystems should be independent of each other wherever possible, and linked with each other via easily accessible interfaces. It is crucial that these interfaces be optimal, state-of-the-art technology. Some examples of bad interfaces are protuberances and setbacks of façade detailing on the inside of the building, which complicate the attachment of partition walls; heating pipes that are laid through partition walls; radiators that exceed window axis, partition walls whose alteration requires interventions in suspended ceilings; cables in move-able partition walls; belated boring of ground tanks; cables running from floor to desk that trap dirt and, on occasion, people.

Some occupancy adjustments are so likely that they have to be allowed for in the planning, such as the transition to future office forms, for example. For this, more density of the workplaces has to be just as feasible as the transformation from office space into special space, and vice versa.

As furniture that serves an organisational function, office partition walls should be free of installations. Electric circuits, location route management, the arrangement of power outlets and lights, and the control systems have to permit occupancy changes – without interruption of occupancy due to dust and noise.

In the ideal case, building design starts with this as a basis. If there is a plan, the results – from the design to the planning of the finishing details and from construction to putting into operation – have to be continuously assessed and optimised in the field of tension between the optimisation of benefit to owner and tenant, future security and profitability.

Occupant orientation

Occupancy and occupant-oriented instruments that are comprehensible to the layman can be developed as early as the planning stage. These communicate the benefit to the customer in a more easily understandable and plausible form than the interchangeable glossy brochures. The landlord should communicate competitive advantages as benefits to the customer that represent problem-solving competence; the consulting with prospective tenants should be a structured process and potential tenants should be supported with goal-oriented aids to work. Thus a lasting bond with the customer can be established already during the planning phase.

The following are some of the instruments that have proved successful:

Clarification of needs:

Leases rarely have comparable values. As the occupancy value of a square meter is dependent on the building and the occupancy strategy, clarification of the real needs is necessary. In this process, the investor gains important insights into the elements that will serve to create the customer bond and information of inestimable value for drafting an offer that is tailored to meet the customer’s needs and designed to solve his problems.

Occupancy planning:

If the functional needs are known, rough occupancy planning can give insight into how many square metres of rental space will be needed in a particular building.

Optimisation of space:

With every occupancy planning, the question of how to save on costs arises. Some options are common sense in office planning; others are cost-saving opportunities specific to the building.

Building comparison:

With the aid of a framework of objective criteria, the tenant can assess the benefits of the building.

Aids to decision-making:

Working aids can be individual instruments that accompany the process or an extensive tenant handbook based on the project.

Service

A wide range of starting points is available to the landlord as service provider. These are worth­while to both tenant and landlord for they represent competitive advantages and added value before, during and after the tenant moves in. Some of these could be building services and office services.

The maxims of all services offered are:

• competitive positioning through cost and benefit for tenants;

• profitability and economic autonomy of services;

• financing out of synergy effects for the benefit of the group of tenants, for example, through the bundling of purchasing power or joint use of expensive infrastructure.

Different service groups can be designed for tenants. Each of the services can be marketed as a module tailored entirely to the tenant’s needs. The tenant’s cost relief is much greater than when price advantages are passed on, because behind almost every one of these services, there are also productivity gains through the use of specialists and absence of personnel costs.

The spectrum ought to show some examples of services offered and illustrate the potential.

• IT services: LAN operation, purchasing of office equipment including maintenance, telerouting, video-conferencing;

• Building management services: area and space management, occupancy and furnishing planning, furniture leasing and desk rental, change of occupancy and renovation or alteration, conference-sharing, energy management, assignment of costs;

• Space and time-saving services: office material purchasing, printing and copier services, internal and external postal services, in-house catering, travel agency, vehicle fleet management, janitor services in rental office space, delivery services.

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Originally published in: Rainer Hascher, Simone Jeska, Birgit Klauck, Office Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2002.