Retain Your Core: Outsource the Rest... Did you know that Proctor & Gamble plans to outsource its back-office operations (payroll, human resources, accounting and travel) for about $800 million per year? (Wall Street Journal, July 5, 2002) Yep, that's real money. But what about real estate? Which firms provide total outsourced real estate services? Well, for years I've heard about a service called The Partner Program offered by Colliers Turley Martin Tucker, which is headquartered in St. Louis.

So flying back from the East Coast a couple of weeks ago, I stopped for a day and visited with Tom Murray and Brandon Mann, who lead The Partner Program. CTMT's Partner Program targets corporations with over 1,000 locations to provide "better, faster, cheaper" real estate services -- portfolio administration, transaction management and facilities management. Their largest clients are Edward Jones and H&R Block.

The backbone of Edward Jones, a financial services company, is its network of 9,000 branch offices, each with just two people occupying 800-900 square feet -- an Investment Representative and an assistant. Edward Jones has no real estate department or personnel. CTMT's 50-employee team provides all real estate-related services, including site selection, acquisition, design, construction, furniture, signage, facilities management and portfolio administration.

In fact, CTMT signs the actual lease and authorizes construction as Edward Jones' agent. Each month CTMT opens 100 locations, and each year they process 150,000 invoices and make $135 million in rental payments. Powerful Internet-based tools like REflex, CTMT's transaction management program, assist the team. But Murray and Mann strongly argue that process and people, not technology, are the critical ingredients. Wow. It's quite a show.

--Peter Pike