The major thrust of my blogs over the past several years has been to focus on the issues surrounding commercial property leases.

I have often talked too about the need for flexibility in leases, strategies for commercial property leasing and innovative thinking about business locations.

And given the fast changing property markets, I have started to extend my thinking, and indeed the services I offer clients, to strategies for owner-occupied commercial property portfolios.

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I’ve often talked in this blog about the need for both flexible and strategic thinking about the location and range of premises a business has.

The reasons regarding productivity, efficiency and taking advantage of technology to work at a range of sites all make good sense.

But the natural disasters from the Queensland floods, to the Christchurch earthquakes and Japanese earthquake/tsunami/nuclear trifecta have given us another very stark reason for flexible locations. (more…)

I’ve just concluded some successful negotiations and located new properties for an IT company. The interesting thing was that we decided the best fit for their business strategy and brand was to move on from a highly visible location.

The usual take on property is “location, location, location”.

But is mainstreet, i.e. expensive CBD real estate, always the best place for a business?

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The impacts of natural disasters on people around the world and close to home have been top of mind for us all in the past few months.

It brought home to me how vulnerable we are wherever we live and work.

I had a personal experience working with relocating businesses affected by the Christchurch earthquake, and it gave me a firsthand experience of how devastating this sort of disaster can be. And of course those impacts are continuing with the ongoing aftershocks.

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Keeping costs to a minimum has always been a central business strategy, but with businesses cutting expenditure to the quick, it is very challenging to find new ways to trim costs further.

I have long held the belief, and in fact the evidence too, that smarter property leasing strategies can offer unexpected opportunities to cut costs. And the results can be immediate.

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I think I would be really hard pushed to find anyone on the planet who wouldn’t like to attend fewer work meetings.

Complaints about ‘meeting overload’ and the trials of a day of back-to-back meetings must echo around offices across the globe.

But there could be a answer in sight… (more…)

Traditional thinking in business is being turned on its head day in day out as technology allows us to work from anywhere anytime.

These new dynamics mean that every day, new jobs are invented that we have never heard of before.

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There are a number of signs that the long talked about green shoots are starting to show a hint of blossom in the post-economic crisis environment.

There are quite a few challenges yet to come, but some key indicators such as business confidence surveys, employment rates and increased business activity are looking positive.

But I have noticed that a (more…)

Just a couple of years ago, the headline above would have made absolutely no sense to anyone. In fact even today, a great number of people would still think it is gobbledegook. But the world is moving fast and what is one day a word or term that only makes sense to geeks, can almost overnight become everyday language.

We now “Google” things, and “Facebook” people rather than research things or write letters, and suddenly we are accustomed to it.

So let me explain today’s heading…

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As we head into a new decade and optimism increases as the green shoots of economic recovery grow leaves, there is going to be some exciting new thinking needed for doing business.

It is increasingly an era of customisation, where people have more and more say about the goods and services they buy, and how, where and when they get them.

In my area of expertise – commercial property leasing – the (more…)

Where and what people have for lunch can be a really interesting indicator about getting the location of business premises right.

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As New Zealanders we pride ourselves on our DIY can-do attitude and it gets us a long way.

But for a while now, business commentators have been challenging this approach saying the downside, particularly on the world stage, can be that a DIY approach is detrimental.

Our top businesses have it mastered, and in (more…)