 Corporate Agility. A Revolutionary New Model for Competing in a Flat World
by Charles E. Grantham, James P. Ware and Cory Williamson
AMA Press, 2007
Charlie Grantham and Jim Ware have been thinking about the future of work for decades (in fact, that was Charlie’s last book title in his 2000 publication). This latest book takes further the concepts we had in a MIT/Gartner study I worked on in 2001 called The Agile Workplace. Supporting People and their Work and concepts set forward in Martha O’Mara’s book, the Strategy of Place, as well as the CoreNet 2010 research which these authors also contributed to. There main thesis is the concept of Collaborative Strategic Management which is the process of bringing together CRE, IT and HR to support employee centric work environments, whether they are in the office, at home or in a series of “3rd places” (hotels, airports, cafes, etc.).
As they describe the mobile workforce, they begin to classify a worker as one that moves:
- Between multiple locations within a building
- Between buildings in a campus or city
- Between different cities or states
- Around a location (i.e. regional sales in a defined territory)
All of these types of workers need different services to support them. One unique example is outsourced services that Johnson Controls provides called ‘facility services without facilities.’ It is all the type of services a worker would need who is telecommuting (i.e. reprographics, meeting logistics, catering) ordered through a concierge system via email or an 800 number.
They also predict that new building services will emerge like the Business Community Center which provides access to workplace services similar to Regus, but you join as a member and then pay when and where you need space. The rise in mobile work will also effect lease structures. For Accenture, their headquarter “image” space is rented with long term leases, but their hub space in metropolitan areas and satellite spaces in the suburbs are on short term leases for added flexibility (the ‘strategy of place’).
Reasons for increased agility we all know. The benefits are to “reduce fixed operating costs in order to increase corporate agility which is the central business challenge of the 21st century.” And to go to a more variable cost structure like the Accenture example above. In addition, increase in energy costs means corporations are going to look for ways to reduce the number of buildings they are heating and cooling and the changing demographics of the workplace require new models for work/life balance.
The case studies of Collaborative Strategic Management successes of JLL, Sprint/Nextel, HP, Accenture, GSA, etc. are worth reading the book alone.
Examples of cost savings from mobile working are staggering (from this book and other research I have done):
- HP saved 24,000 tons of CO2; avoided 15 m.gallons of gas purchase and saved 2 million commutes
- IBM saved $683m in costs since starting their workplace strategy program in 2003
- Pac Bell saved $20 million over 5 years
- Merrill Lynch reported saving $5000-6000 for each office eliminated through telecommuting
- Nortel saves $20/year in RE costs eliminating dedicated office space
- AT&T reduced office space costs by 50% saving $500m over the last ten years.
This book also mentions that their research has proven that there are 15% productivity gains in those who participate in distributed work. (And I might add for those workers who remain in the office and use our planning tools, a Gensler study in 2006, 9 out of 10 workers believe that better office design leads to better overall employee performance, and also makes a company more competitive. 90% of execs feel that better working environment would have positive effect on the bottom line; their companies would be able to perform an average of 22% MORE WORK if they had better designed physical spaces.)
Nancy Johnson Sanquist, 21 January 2007 San Diego, California
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