Now is the perfect time for real estate shuffles

One of the major issues facing corporate users today is decentralizing operations while still ensuring efficiency, productivity and creativity amongst its employees. This is a monumental undertaking for any corporation and is especially daunting given the series of events that led to its consideration. However, given current market conditions, this move can offer key advantages not only for a company's continuity, but also its bottom line.

Although most prevalent throughout the financial services and information technology industries, decentralization is an option that should be considered by any company that has 100% of its operations or 100% of any given business unit in a single location.

With corporate profits on the rise and growth prospects improving, now is an advantageous time to review local and state tax incentives and perform a "stacking analysis" of office space within a building or office park in order to consider relocation opportunities.

A restacking analysis will reveal two basic options: either a creative use of existing space or the need to take additional and/or new space. With hiring on the rise, the need to lease additional space has started to increase. Market conditions have just started to trend upward, so the near future will be an opportune time to revisit decentralization issues. This can be done by simply transferring portions of business units into a new facility or by reshuffling groups throughout existing facilitiesthis process does have repercussions for human resources by either disrupting existing teams within a unit by rendering them less deployable or affecting the lifestyle choices many professionals make by working in a particular location. Someone working and living in an urban location might seek out a competitor when faced with the prospect of moving to the suburbs, and vice versa.

In addition, the outbound personnel may feel that they are being moved away from the power base. However, these factors are negligible when looking to enter a market already boasting a large and well-educated labor pool. On the other hand, companies have the opportunity to create a leaner, more cost effective organizational structure.

The decentralization of any company is an onerous process. Some of the larger full service commercial real estate brokers have consulting departments well equipped to assist clients in the analysis.