Corporate real estate asset management: a survey of New Zealand publicly-listed companies and an empirical research on Telecom Corporation of New Zealand

Abstract

Awareness of the need to manage corporate real estate assets properly has escalated in recent years. Although a substantial literature, mainly from the United States, has explored the concept and practice of corporate real estate asset management, comparatively few writings on this topical issue have been reported in New Zealand. In fact, the present research is the first to be performed in New Zealand on corporate real estate asset management.

This research assesses the current state of corporate real estate asset management in New Zealand corporations by performing a nation-wide mail questionnaire survey of all non-real estate companies, publicly listed in the New Zealand Stock Exchange. The survey findings also lead to the examination of various factors influencing and enhancing the corporate real estate management performance. To substantiate the survey findings, and to further highlight the importance of corporate real estate asset management as an integral aspect of all non-real estate businesses, an extensive case study on Telecom Corporation of New Zealand is performed. As perceived by various renowned New Zealand property professionals, Telecom has one of the best corporate real estate asset management team in New Zealand. Telecom is, therefore, used as a model for the state of the art corporate real estate asset management that is uniquely New Zealand.

An inter-disciplinary model of corporate real estate asset management has been developed and explored in this study. Three major factors, namely corporate attitudes, structure of corporate real estate unit, and property inventory record, and two secondary factors, namely property staff and reward system, capture the various dimensions of corporate real estate asset management. Based on the three major performance factors, three research hypotheses were developed and statistically examined. Chi-square analysis was employed. With regard to the two secondary factors, which necessarily command acute analyses of some highly sensitive and confidential information, it is strongly believed that they can only be examined under circumstances which allow for extensive interviews. These two factors are appropriately addressed in the case study of Telecom.

The research results offer strong support for the conceptual model of corporate real estate asset management developed, except where it concerns the notion that a profit centre structure is more congenial for increasing performance of corporate real estate asset management than a cost centre structure. Positive corporate attitudes, systematic organisation of a property inventory record, a motivated team of property professionals, and a fair employee reward system, are observed to have significant influences on a firm's corporate real estate performance.