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Although real estate is the largest, or second-largest, asset for most companies, it rarely captures senior management's attention. And real estate decisions, many of which are made within business units and driven by short-term needs, don't usually reflect a company's broader strategy. Apgar presents five maxims that will help executives make the most of this critical resource. Manage the portfolio. Instead of making site-by-site analyses, executives need to cultivate an overall understanding of their holdings, including a snapshot of the company's existing footprint and a view of its future needs. Build in flexibility. Companies that prize flexibility own less and lease more. They favor space that can be subdivided and converted from one use to another, and they decrease their real estate costs by offering such workplace options as telecommuting. Cultivate intelligence. In order to connect real estate decisions to corporate strategy, executives need accurate data. And they must pay more attention to internal measures than to fluctuations in the real estate market. Team with professionals. Companies that maintain the most efficient and flexible real estate portfolios often do so by enlisting partners that offer expertise and efficiencies. Embrace sustainability. Companies of all types are transforming the buildings they use in order to reduce harmful emissions. Green buildings can cost more up front, but they deliver high returns over the long term.

A $200 billion market has appeared on your business horizon, but you may not have noticed it. It's the new U.S. military. Virtually all aspects of the military are changing to ensure that it can fight unpredictable threats while sustaining the infrastructure needed to support and train forces. The military is turning to nontraditional business partners to meet a wide range of needs, from health care to housing to information technology. The Defense Department is yielding its monopoly on every aspect of national security and adopting a more businesslike model in which the military's warfighting capabilities are supported through outsourcing and business alliances. Market standards are replacing the heavy customization that has locked many companies out of this marketplace. The authors have participated in the transformation process from different perspectives--one civilian, the other military. Together, they highlight the prospects that transformation is creating for companies outside the traditional defense industry and reveal paths to success in this complex market. They also present six principles for doing business with the military that require persistence, integrity, and a willingness to master the intricacies of a distinctive culture.

This article describes the benefits and challenges of alternative workplace programs. Today many organizations, including AT&T and IBM, are pioneering the alternative workplace--the combination of nontraditional work practices, settings, and locations that is beginning to supplement traditional offices. This is not a fad. Although estimates vary widely, it is safe to say that some 30-40 million people in the United States are now either telecommuters or home-based workers. What motivates managers to examine how people spend their time at the office and where else they might do their work? Among the potential benefits for companies are reduced costs, increased productivity, and an edge in vying for and keeping talented employees. They can also capture government incentives and avoid costly sanctions. But at the same time, alternative workplace programs are not for everyone. Indeed, such programs can be difficult to adopt, even for those organizations that seem to be most suited to them. Ingrained behaviors and practical hurdles are hard to overcome. And the challenges of managing both the cultural changes and systems improvements required by an alternative workplace initiative are substantial. How should senior managers think about alternative workplace programs? What are the criteria for determining whether the alternative workplace is right for a given organization? What are the most common pitfalls in implementing alternative workplace programs? The author provides the answers to these questions in his examination of this new frontier of where and how people work.

Real estate escapes the thoughtful attention of most senior managers. It often falls within the realm of their responsibilities, but many do not appreciate its potential impact on company performance. So they delegate real estate to specialists, who operate on a deal-by-deal basis and consider their decisions as administrative and technical tasks. Recently, however, some companies--IBM, AT&T, Chemical Bank, Dun & Bradstreet, and Sun Microsystems, for example--have recognized that by managing real estate as a business function, they can cut costs significantly and, at the same time, increase productivity.

Senior managers at large companies may think that occupancy costs are too insignificant to worry about, too technical to analyze, and too fixed to control. But occupancy costs can hurt a company's earnings, share value, and overall performance. To manage occupancy costs, managers must be able to identify their components, measure their impact, understand what drives them, and develop options to change them. Four basic tools help diagnose problems: a cost history, a loss analysis, a component analysis, and a lease aging profile. Executives also must understand cost drivers like leasing, location, and layout.