Business Culture is the new Corporate Standards

Customer Discovery Lessons Learned Part I

We recently completed a rigorous customer discovery program. In four weeks we interviewed 50 industry leaders and corporate insiders, all of whom were generous with their time and passionate about the development of contemporary office environments.

We heard many stories and gained useful insights. This post will consider the influence of corporate workplace standards.

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Corporate Workplace STANDARDS

Enterprise businesses dedicate resources in the form of experienced in-house real estate services personnel for workplace development. Among their responsibilities is implementing workplace strategy according to corporate workplace standards. These are comprehensive guidelines that provide a template for the development of new working environments and take years to evolve. Corporate workplace standards intend to accomplish three goals

  1. Optimize productivity

  2. Convey corporate brand

  3. Provide a sense of consistency

Workplace transformations result from discrete events, like mergers, acquisitions, and growth. Internally developed ad hoc technologies sometimes complement the application of corporate workplace standards.

A building site manager we spoke with said standards are developed by senior management, team members with design backgrounds, and contracted architectural firms. Standards are used for the office programming process. Technology for workspace planning uses data not expressly gathered for the purpose of office programming or workplace development for decision making.  When asked how long office programming can take, she said, “it goes quickly because we have a well-defined process”

“It goes quickly because we have a well-defined process”

One multinational company headquartered in Europe takes a very proactive approach to space needs, re-evaluating locations every two years.  They use familiar CAD tools for design, some analytics, and a proprietary application for real estate asset management. The most challenging aspect of workplace strategy is negotiating consensus among stakeholders, a requirement during the phase-gate process.

Interviewees that worked for successful financial institutions described liberal corporate workplace standards that specified generous workspace allowances as a perk for high-value traders. Workplace accommodations in this case were said to be luxurious.  However, when faced with explosive growth and no annual renovation budget, amenities and social spaces are often the first to go.

“...when faced with explosive growth and no annual renovation budget, amenities and social spaces are often the first to go.”

Data Driven Development

Can small and medium sized businesses, especially at early growth stages, achieve the benefits of corporate workplace standards without hiring costly internal real estate services personnel?  The answer is “yes,” if you’ve got good data. Analytics yield insights into workplace strategy and the office programming process.

Among its advantages, a data driven process achieves parity with conventional corporate workplace standards, but in an order of magnitude less time. With a tech-enabled process, business owners quickly acquire branded office programming that is 

  • Portable

  • Vendor agnostic

  • Agile

Data driven development gathers data continuously, stores it in a repository, and retrieves it as needed, not merely when business volatility demands a transformation. Workplace requirements can be re-evaluated and reports generated on demand to accommodate

  • Workforce growth 

  • Business evolution

  • Workspace flexibility

Data driven development handles business needs that corporate workplace standards do not have time to consider due to budget and schedule constraints. For example, incorporating forecast data into a workplace strategy data model for scenario planning looks beyond how a workplace can be designed today. Business projections extrapolate office programming over a three to five year time horizon.

Effective office environments have generally been considered a luxury or a perk because they’re so hard to achieve in practice or have required disproportionate resources to do so. But a data driven process can reduce costs and enable peak performance in any growing business, regardless of scale.

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Business Culture Model

Fast-growing organizations without core competency in corporate real estate development or office space planning have another option to the conventional approach to creating successful office environments. A suitable alternative needs to be 

  • Robust

  • Efficient

  • Cost effective

Aenvision has learned that data driven development can dramatically accelerate a process that takes years for in-house real estate services personnel to master in the absence of technology at a fraction of the cost. Aenvision has proven that small and medium-sized businesses can craft their own customized equivalents of corporate workplace standards from readily available organizational data gathered from a variety of familiar sources. The Aenvision platform analyzes this data to produce Business Culture Models (BCM), the first step to identifying key performance indicators that matter most for the proper operation of the business. Providing actionable analytics and tech-enabled decision making throughout the workplace development process reduces workplace development times by 80% or more for almost any business, at any scale.

“Tech-enabled decision making reduces workplace development times by 80% or more for almost any business at any scale.”

Data is everywhere in today’s business world.  Aenvision BCM augment conventional corporate workplace standards by aggregating data and presenting scenario planning for the present day, here and now, alongside a wide range of future possibilities. Business owners can now view office space as a flexible resource and manage transformations much more easily as business requirements evolve.

If your business is currently redefining the workplace or planning to soon, contact us today. And if you have experiences of your own to add, please leave a comment or get in touch.

Henry Villadiego1 Comment