Igniting the transformational power of your portfolio

Businesses may have once viewed their real estate as just an expense on the balance sheet, but times have changed. Today’s leaders know their portfolios can be powerful drivers of growth, resilience, company culture and community.

Still, recognizing the power of place is one thing. Realizing that potential is another. Transforming your portfolio into a catalyst for business success requires a cohesive team focused on reliable data, people and centralized management. When these factors come together, you’re equipped to realize the full potential of your real estate to create value across your business.

“An optimized portfolio is only possible when you bridge the gap between strategy and execution,” says Sue Asprey Price, head of JLL’s Portfolio Services business. “Our portfolio services teams at JLL bring together professionals with expertise across every aspect of portfolio management and strategy because we know that a holistic approach delivers better outcomes for our clients.”

Getting more value from your real estate starts with accurate and consistent data — including all the details buried in lease agreements. 

“Just about every real estate function relies on lease data. Strategists use it to evaluate your current portfolio, transaction managers leverage it to drive decisions, and facility managers need it to understand tenant and landlord responsibilities,” says Brett Abrams, Global Head of Lease Administration, JLL. “But too often, that data lives in a variety of spreadsheets in different formats, making it hard to fully understand the global footprint and stay on top of lease events.”

Centralizing your lease administration function with an experienced partner can provide an efficient path to streamline data collection and improve data quality. You’ll transform your data into a real-time advantage so you’re better equipped to identify cost savings, mitigate risks and act with precision. 

That’s what one leading retailer did when it realized that inconsistent data across regions was hindering strategic decision-making. To unify lease data across its expansive global portfolio, the company turned to JLL for a comprehensive lease administration overhaul. The result? A 72% reduction in unconfirmed lease options, 100% data consistency across 1,500+ leases and a robust foundation for strategic portfolio management. 

Unifying lease administration, audit and accounting into a single source of the truth will give you full command and clarity over your lease operations and compliance. Plus, you’ll be able to uncover hidden value. At JLL, we treat the data managed by our Lease Administration team as actionable real estate intelligence, using it to develop more informed portfolio strategies. Your data can be a source of competitive advantage, helping you stay ahead of ever-changing market dynamics.

Unifying data may be the first step in optimizing your real estate portfolio, but great strategies also require insights on your people and how they work.

“When we’re partnering with a company to reimagine their portfolio, we first examine how people in the organization work today and how innovation and technology will disrupt or enhance that. The question of place comes later,” says Lee Daniels, Managing Director, JLL Consulting Services. “To create human-centered experiences, you have to understand employee behaviors and what top performers need to be productive and inspired.”

That’s how a global MedTech enterprise approached its workplace strategy reset after a spinoff from its parent company. Partnering with JLL, the company wanted to enhance productivity while invigorating employees’ professional and social lives. We started at the company’s global headquarters, where we created a dynamic space to test new workplace strategies with employees. The testing space soon became a vibrant hub and a model for rolling out new workplace strategies throughout the portfolio. 

Although more organizations are realizing the role of real estate in delivering a great workplace experience, many still make critical decisions without fully understanding how people, place and market dynamics intersect. One way to fill that gap is to work with a real estate partner that combines market intelligence, behavioral insights and trends. Technology solutions, including advanced analytics and real-time data, can also help you be adaptive and respond to market moves quicker. 

Many organizations are striving to build a future where people thrive, businesses flourish and communities prosper. Strategies that balance business, environmental and social priorities make that outcome possible. The key is to use that vision as a guiding light for any major initiative, whether you’re developing portfolio strategies, undertaking business transformation or designing a new workplace.

People-centered strategies and reliable data are the foundation for a top-performing portfolio, but you also need to break down silos to create portfolio-wide change.

Many organizations still treat real estate transactions as tactical plays, but rethinking deals as a connected system will create strategic momentum that compounds over time. Having a centralized team oversee all transactions lets you see how each decision impacts others, uncover savings opportunities and gain more leverage in negotiations. It sets you on a path to maximizing long-term business value and competitive advantage.

“If you want to optimize your portfolio, you need a tight link between the people determining portfolio strategy and those developing market strategy,” says Brennan Adams, Americas Co-Lead of Transaction Management, JLL. “If you don’t have someone connecting your enterprise strategy with landlord and market insights, then you have a big gap between pie-in-the-sky targets and what happens on the ground.”

In addition to creating connectivity across your portfolio, acting with speed is essential to capitalize on market opportunities. Tech-enabled workflows can reduce risks, stay ahead of critical dates and accelerate negotiations. Partnering with a transaction management specialist can offer access to predictive analytics and insight dashboards to help you stay ahead of the curve and adapt to change faster than competitors.

Consider the story of a rapidly growing technology company with a sprawling 50 million-square-foot portfolio across more than 60 countries. When economic uncertainty surfaced, the company knew something had to change. They partnered with JLL to design a new transaction management operating model, effectively managing 400 transactions annually. With consistent standards and optimized resources, the company is now able to adapt its real estate portfolio as market conditions shift, swiftly transitioning between site exits and expansion strategies.

Every decision and transaction creates ripples across your entire organization. Strong ties between the people setting and executing strategies help ensure those ripples create positive, lasting change.

“Companies increasingly recognize the need to make portfolio decisions in a holistic manner. To fine-tune your footprint, you need reliable analytics across the portfolio, and teams who work together toward a common goal,” says Alex Diaz, JLL’s Global Head of Portfolio Solutions.

At JLL, our Portfolio Services teams infuse our strategies with insights from colleagues across our business, including space planners, facility and project managers, sustainability specialists, workplace designers, brokers and capital markets professionals. Once it’s time to implement strategies, we collaborate with our client to transition to the teams who will be rolling them out, ensuring a coordinated approach.

JLL’s Portfolio Services team empowers you to reimagine your portfolios as a strategic advantage that ignites innovation, sustainability and the human experience. Our Lease Administration, Consulting and Transaction Management teams offer flexible solutions for where your business is today — and where you’re heading. Bringing together visionary strategies with data and technology-driven execution, we partner with you to create measurable outcomes across your business.

Ready to optimize your portfolio? Contact us today.