CRE Leadership Perspectives on 2020 and Beyond (Part 2)

As a continuation from my previous post, I also sat down with CRE heads from Samsung and Linkedin to get insights on how they are planning their CRE strategies around challenges and opportunities in 2020 and beyond.

Below is my conversation with Santosh K, the Associate Director for Real Estate and Facilities at Samsung, and Arun Kumar SL, who heads Global Workplace Services for Linkedin India.

Q. Tell us about your role in your organisation. 

I currently head CRE, Facilities, Physical Security and EHS for Samsung Semiconductor India Research, located at Bangalore. In this role, I have completed the interior fit-outs for 500,000 sq ft of space and have built from scratch a team of 11 members to manage the above mentioned functions along with employee transport and travel. The facilities function comprises of hard and soft services within the floor plate.

Q.    What will be your highest priority initiatives for the workplace for 2020, and what are the drivers behind them?

My top initiatives for 2020 will be sustainability, enhancing employee experience and analytics.

Sustainability: At Samsung, we have a lot of labs, and samples are brought in abundance, which brings in single use plastic. It is critical for us to evaluate reduction of single use plastic to protect the environment.

Enhancing employee experience: The premises being less than a year old has been incorporated with the needs of Gen Z and millennials. However, as we bring in more lateral hires and after existing employees have spent a year in the space, it will be critical for me as a CRE leader to evaluate how do I enhance the experience and rope in new ideas.

Analytics: We have invested on BMS, and it has generated enough data over the last 6-8 months and one of the top focus areas for me in the coming year will be analysing the data, which should help me in planning for further investment areas to increase productivity/ reduce energy consumption.

In addition to the above, as a leader, my focus is also to build critical skills and strengthen the current and future bench strength of my CRE and facilities vertical. I have encouraged each of my team members to be a part of forums they think are relevant and aim for one certification in the next 2 years.

Q. What trends do you see having the most impact on your corporate real estate needs and why?

I feel AI and blockchain are some of the top trends to have a great impact on CRE needs. AI along with machine learning is entering every space, and it’s not far away that we will have a business analyst as a specialist role for CRE within the organisation itself. The program manager role is becoming popular and will continue to trend in 2020. Blockchain is much talked about and could change the way property valuations and leases are conducted.

Q. Tell us about your role in your organisation. 

As the LinkedIn India Head for Workplace Services, I spearhead the entire gamut of operations related to workplace services in Linkedin’s offices in Bangalore, Mumbai, and Gurgaon.

Q. What will be your highest priority initiatives for the workplace for 2020, and what are the drivers behind them?

Our highest priorities for 2020 are: designing employee experience initiatives to support talent retention; innovating to maximize space utilization; and supporting innovation which improves user experience and business processes.

Q. What trends do you see having the most impact on your corporate real estate needs and why?

In India, one emerging challenge is the lack of availability of real estate to suit rapid business expansion. The development of real estate is typically limited to key locations like Outer Ring Road and Whitefield –areas which are not of a great help to companies as they often have infrastructure issues like long commutes for workers, pollution, small floor plates, and more.

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There are lots of lessons to be learnt from Samsung and Linkedin who have an eye on the future as they recognise the importance of enhancing the workplace experience toward the needs of Gen Z and millennials who will eventually make up the majority of the work force in the next decade. In order to attract and retain talent, businesses will increasingly seek out collaborative and flexible workplace solutions. This is one of the themes that was apparent in the (Y)OUR SPACE report, and it will be interesting to see how they will continue to develop within the context of 2020.

 If you’d like to read Part 1 with insights from NTT and Cisco, please refer here

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/cre-leadership-perspectives-2020-beyond-sathish/