The Leader - September/October 2008 - (Page 70) cr ea tIN G com petItIve a Dva NtaG e : tho mas G latte aND re al e s tate ’ s maNDate at Bas f fINDING taleNt ‘Not so easY’ Thomas Glatte, who spent 10 years working on the ground in Asia and is a civil engineer by training, sees the War for Talent in CRE as problematic. “Hiring good people is not so easy,” he observes first-hand. The fact he’s launching a facilities management group in Europe and is stressing project management in Asia is a direct reflection of two areas of talent severely lacking on an industry-wide basis. He also lectures on real estate and property development at two universities in Germany and draws CRE interns from the student ranks. “It gives me the chance to see talent develop at a very early age,” he says. “A few of them have already joined the company.” Teaching also keeps him grounded. “Young students, at least in Germany, tend to challenge whoever tries to educate them, which is good. It keeps your feet on the ground.” But there’s some decentralization, too, as is also often the case with globally- centralized CRE models that still need to partner on decisions with business units and perform ‘bottom-up’ due diligence with people on the ground in other markets. ‘GloBalIzeD’ moDel in June to increase the focus on the E.U. and Asia. It’s just the tip of the iceberg. “Real estate has a mandate,” Glatte says of the C-Suite view of his function. He also outlines how CRE is impacting, even driving, the enterprise in other key areas like transactions. “Corporate real estate is in charge of any real estate-related transactions and any real estate-related activity,” he says of what he calls “a very centralized” organizational model that is now the hallmark of many globally integrated CRE departments in other multinational companies. “We have attached global responsibility to local know-how,” is how he describes this aspect of the model. “In such a global business, real estate is still local, so this requires us to be in the field although we are centralized.” There’s also an internal client relations management, or CRM, side to the model. “We divided ourselves into regional or country management levels for our main (internal) customers … but also by business units,” he says. Glatte’s team spends 40-60 percent of its time serving clients in the field, underscoring the intensity of the client interface with CRE, and rigorous site selection processes. It also makes management of the CRE team a largely virtual exercise for Glatte. Metrics, ever-crucial to effective portfolio performance, are run up from the regional level. “We have focused ourselves on regional and business unit metrics,” he observes, “because they help us find more optimization potential.” But data are no substitute for keeping an ear to the ground. Asia, where fast growth has hastened demand for qualified project managers, is a good example. “Asia-Pacific requires so much support that we’ve dedicated from our German team an additional project manager solely to that region,” including BASF’s third production site in China. “I’ve placed one of my staff on a two-year project assignment there to make sure all the right site and master planning will be there, that the infrastructure will be there.” Glatte pointedly adds, “My staff is encouraged, even required, to keep in close contact with our regional and country-level customers” in the business units. The result, in classic decision-support fashion, is that CRE is better able to inform senior management when it comes time to make key decisions. Glatte’s team has earned ‘trusted advisor’ status with the C-Suite and business unit heads, in this respect. It’s manifested one way through acquisitions and dispositions of real estate assets. Anything under €€5-million (US$8 million) is approved by CRE and the business unit together. From that level up to €€10-million (US$16 million), other support functions like legal and finance get involved. When BASF’s massive production center and corporate base in Ludwigshafen, Germany. 2 0 0 8 th e le aDe r 70 septemBer / octoBer
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