Voice of the Occupier: Ingrid Fenn

Hosted by Adam Hoy, Past President of the CoreNet UK Chapter, this episode features a conversation with President and CEO, Ingrid Fenn at Sireas.  Tune in to hear their thoughts on the pressing challenges facing occupiers in today's CRE landscape. 

Listen now to gain valuable insights and to stay ahead of the curve. 

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Transcript

 Welcome to the voice of the occupier, the podcasts from the UK chapter of cornet that dives deep into the world of commercial real estate from the perspective of those who truly inhabited. I'm your host, Adam Hoy, and I'll bring you insightful conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and visionaries.

Shedding light on the challenges and opportunities facing occupiers today. Let's get started.

Welcome to another episode of the voice of the occupier podcast brought to you by the UK chapter of CoreNet. I'm really excited to be back today with Ingrid Fenn, president and CEO of Sirius Consulting. Ingrid's been around the occupier world, the corporate real estate world for a long time. And I'm really excited to have her with us today.

Ingrid, welcome to the show. 

Thank you. Nice to be here. 

Yeah, absolutely. As I said, you've got a really interesting background. So if you could just introduce yourself to our listeners quickly, that would be great. 

Yeah. Again, my name is Ingrid Fenn. Nice to meet you all. So I'm, president and CEO of a company called Sirius and we've been around for 10 years providing, advisory service within the real estate and facilities management environment.

And,  prior to that, I spend most of my career on the occupier side. So managing various aspects. of real estate and facilities for a number of global organizations. So I had, a cool opportunity of spending most of my twenties traveling across, I think almost 120 different countries and really learning about different businesses, about the real estate market.

So worked in the brokerage and transaction management environment, managed lease administration functions and, centralization of that. And then in the, in my most recent occupier job before founding my own firm, did an entire. Centralization of real estate and facilities management, and that included, traveling all over the globe, meeting with VPs of operations, helping them think through, how do we, start to standardize and bring, in a centralized way, the thinking and the processes around the delivery of facility services.

And I founded my firm 10 years ago, and, we've been in the market helping organizations across the country. All different industries to, to implement those strategies.  Nice to be here. 

Fantastic. Yeah. Great to have you. Obviously have a great background. You've done a lot with Cornet over the years.

We run into each other quite often at summits and you're often speaking on different things. I think the. The company that you lead in the position that you have in the industry gives you a pretty unique view in terms of what's going on in the marketplace, certainly valuable to the Occupy our listeners that we have so really interested in getting your views.

So if I start there, I think the past five years, so it's hard to believe that we're five years. from the beginning of COVID, which, can't believe it's been five years. But, we know that in our industry, that's a point in time. And I think it'll always probably be a point in time, as an evolution for our industry.

And, there's been a lot of discussions we've had with occupiers over the last couple of years. Things like return to office and user experience, flight to quality. A lot of those things that we're hearing occupiers focus on. Which are real things. I think what we're seeing is that, while probably more, in front of us in terms of headlines, especially in the U.

S. Around companies coming back more mandates around people in the office, we've seen that shift. I think it could have been looked at as a, where the employees had more of the power. But now I think it's shifting back to where The employers are the ones that are dictating, how we move into a, to the next, iteration of hybrid working, but just wondering from your point of view.

And again, you've got a pretty unique view across the industry. What are some of the bigger challenges you're seeing now for the occupiers that you work with? 

Yeah, I think, the challenges and areas of focus certainly vary from company to company and industry to industry and some of our clients really almost never left the office, right?

So they have very different challenges than return to office. And then many. Are grappling with those changes of, what it looks like coming back. And like you said, that kind of shift of power or whatever you want to call it between employee and employer. But I think, generally companies are increasingly prioritizing higher quality, particularly office spaces and certainly service letter levels that really provide.

More superior work environments that are aligned with I think a combination of both employees being and productivity rates So the focus, you know shifting a little bit from only looking at productivity to the combination of the two I think organizations are Also really shifting that focus as the need to attract and retain talent becomes more critical.

But as you said, that, shift and that need to that realization. I think that when we're together, when there's collaboration. We can be more effective. We can do things, many things differently and in more efficiently. And so we're seeing, I think, a focus on headquarter locations or consolidation strategies were really there's a focus on where investment is happening.

So I think if you think pre covid, there was almost a spreading out. There was a, let's grow the portfolio and touch all the locations that everybody might need to need to go to or where all employees are located. And now we're seeing a, real consideration of where investment happens.

What are the prime locations where you wanna really make those. If you want to call it headquarters or those those offices where you're going to have people come together for collaboration, and then there may be other ways of working outside of that. 

Yeah, that's interesting. I think, one of the things you brought up there was.

was service levels. And I think there's definitely been an evolution over time, with regard to what employees want or expect in different buildings when they come to work every day, whether that be an office or a factory or an R& D location. Can you talk a little bit more about services, service levels?

What types of things are you seeing? Are there differences now where companies are focused? Specifically wellbeing is one of the things we talk about, but are you seeing anything unique in terms of the different services or service levels you're seeing in the market now?

Yeah. I think during COVID there was  generally across the board, a ramp down of service requirements and potentially service levels in many cases. And so companies are thinking through, how do you resource up, but there's also inflationary pressure pressures, right? And rising costs that is. 

making that challenging. And so to me, the biggest shift with service levels is in really the approach or the shift of two kind of outcome based service levels. So asking suppliers to focus on, elevating the quality of the service, but also maintaining costs. And that means they have to do things more, more efficiently.

through automation, through technology, right? And not looking at these, output driven types of relationships. And so if you think about, even in the cleaning environment, we used to see contracts that were, you will clean X number of times in every location across the portfolio. Now we know we, we can use technology.

We can use data that drives. Looking at volumes, looking at usage, and then you can right size how you think about cleaning, how you think about automation of cleaning, etc. So I think across the board, we're seeing that shift of you as a service provider, tell us what you can do to increase service levels while also helping us mitigate the cost pressures that I think everyone is seeing as well.

Yeah, that's interesting. And, from where you sit, we all, we're all talking about AI and how AI can be part of what we do. Are you seeing any, anything come, into, contract frameworks around AI or how are you seeing AI play into the current delivery of services or creation of SLAs, that type of thing?

I think  we're still a little bit away from where the occupier is focusing on a I think there's a lot of curiosity around it. But certainly, if you look in the service provider environment, there's a lot of investment happening and depending on where that is.  within the business, you look at the trends, transaction management, brokerage focus, there's a lot of activity happening around, AI getting ahead of what AI can do to streamline those processes and things like that.

So I think generally, across the board, AI is going to completely shift the way services are delivered. I do think the end user, there's a huge opportunity and many, have not. gotten there. At least the conversations we had were, are not quite there yet. 

Yeah, I fully agree. I think what's going to be interesting in talking to occupiers, this is something that's on their agenda and it's something that they are definitely looking into.

I think from a, from an occupier perspective, there's the thought that the service providers will bring this to them as part of. Their service provision. So if they're out in the market for an RFP or they're in a long term relationship, they're leaning on those big service providers to come with the AI. 

What are the, how are they creating value in their delivery or their service offering to the occupiers from an AI perspective? So it'll definitely be interesting to see what evolves over time in terms of how that plays a factor in, into these relationships, 

even if you just think about benchmarking, right?

I think that's a Number one, a huge ask anyways from the occupier side, wanting to understand how they're performing. But as an industry, that's always been very challenging. And there's a lot of variables that go and assumptions that go into it. And a lot of that is driven because data isn't tracked consistently.

And I think there's a huge opportunity there on the service provider side in particular to start to think through how you can take data and make it meaningful and consistent and across the industry from that perspective. And I think that will be an expectation that is, more and more at the forefront.

Yeah. 

Yeah, fully agree. I think, if you think of things like preventative maintenance, right? It's very basic. How can AI get in front of, preventative maintenance to change preventative maintenance schedules? So we're doing it more based upon need than standard three months, six months, whatever it might be.

We're seeing some of that come through in certain areas. And talking to occupiers around how they're utilizing it and certainly talking to service providers. But I think, it's just scratching the surface. And then you look at AI when it comes to, customer experience and feedback we're getting and how we take instant information around what Our occupants like or don't like and how we, instantly put that into a service provision rather than waiting for a quarterly review or set of survey results to then pivot from.

So it's definitely an exciting time. And I think it'll be, a big change in the next few years in terms of how we as internal service providers provide service to our colleagues and to our business and our enterprises. 

Yeah. I certainly think it's going to completely change brokerage.

And I think that's a really interesting just general conversation in the market and what that's going to look like for the occupier in You know how brokerage is procured how brokerage is paid for? I think there's going to be You know, pretty significant shifts and a lot of the I think the service providers are starting to contemplate that but it's going to move more quickly than I think any of us consider right now.

Yeah, fully agree. My next question in line with this piece of conversation. Regarding trends in the marketplace, obviously your company is working a lot with clients and looking at longer term relationships. We've talked a lot about Vested over the last few years, and I know that's something, that your firm, works with as well.

But can you talk a little bit about trends in the marketplace, whether that's contract trends post COVID or things you're seeing, with your view, working with a number of different clients and industries? 

Yeah, so I think, for many large corporate organizations who have  Entered into or shifted into more strategic partnerships, they're looking for those to be more robust and more collaborative and really starting to view suppliers as partners, strategic partners, rather than just that traditional vendor client relationships.

So I think that's been a huge shift and that really changes both how the behaviors of how the relationships are operating together, but also. How the contracts are put in place. And so we're seeing, an emphasis on flexibility within the terms within how you manage change and variability within contracts that, also, I think the balance between rare risk is these are conversations that I think as we evolve in the relationships, we're learning that yeah.

Sustainability and longevity of them are driven by these things rather than just only focusing on that very procurement cost perspective. And so total value, it is becoming more, more a consideration rather than just always trying to focus on the margin, because I think particularly in the facilities environment.

We know, that  historically reducing costs has been tied to service levels or, pushing, maintenance decisions or things like that. And that no longer works. And so really an emphasis on innovation. Transformation within the relationship like where does that cost savings or that value really count?

And that's in automation technology rather than just, pure cutting of cost out of supply chain as an example.  That's a big shift. 

Yeah, that's good to hear. I think and, from where I sit, I think COVID has played a big part in that. Where the corporate real estate teams have gotten, the brand level within enterprises has changed a bit post COVID, and I think senior execs are seeing the value in investing in this space rather than it just being a cost line and trying to get to the lowest number.

It's making sure that we're investing in the spaces so that we're getting the value out of it. I think the conversation definitely has changed and that's a good thing to see. 

We are doing way more what I would call like strategic or transformational renewal type initiatives rather than go to market.

And I think again, as that evolvement has happened, as procurement is really brought into the partnership, we're seeing companies. Not always, but in many cases wanna grow and evolve with the partners that they have in place and work to transform together, which requires, changes and shifts within the organization on both sides rather than this just continual, trend of going to market every five years and looking what else is available.

And I think, that has been a. a real notice shift in the last couple years of, let's really work together to try to evolve and and move forward. 

Yeah. Yeah. I think there's the bid fatigue that comes around every few years for big companies. And I know, on the service provider side, there's a balance of what.

What RFPs they participate in, right? There's going to be companies that won't go for everyone because of obviously it costs money to do it and they're going to weigh their ability or likelihood of succeeding in those. So I fully agree looking more at beneficial partnerships, negotiations, that type of thing, makes sense.

And if you're building that long term relationship, I think that, that's definitely something that, we could have more of as we move forward in the marketplace. One of the things that we see, we've talked about in the UK chapter is  The relationship between landlords and tenants, right? I think one of the things that we noticed was that we as a cornet function, we probably didn't have the right balance of landlords, even within our industry group, right?

It seems like there's always been that, tension, I guess you could say, between an occupier and a landlord. I think over the past few years, we've definitely seen, things like the flex provision come in where the contract type is different, between tenant and there, there might be the flex provider in between that's offering a different service.

I think we've seen, landlords evolve over time and understanding that in some markets, you're not just going to be able to get a flat 15 years and there's going to be incremental increases over time. But  again, from your seats, are you seeing anything new in terms of the occupier landlord relationship?

Are you seeing evolutions there? 

Yeah, I think you hit on a lot of those changes, right? But I think landlords are certainly more open to offering flexibility within the lease terms and more willing to work with occupiers on customization of the space. I think, they're paying more attention to creating experiences and.

Improving amenities, right that hasn't always traditionally been a big focus of landlords and it has to be now so They're participating and I think more willing to be partners in those initiatives than in the past I think certainly on sustainability and esg goals, Landlords have to work with occupiers on those in many cases.

And so the openness to do that is increasing and in some markets there are  Occupies occupiers and landlords that are exploring more like risk sharing models and so performance based kind of rent Approaches, which I think is interesting not happening a lot, but it's it  is starting to happen so yeah, we're seeing some shifts in that way.

Yeah, that's good that evolution I think is important because we know that  these lease terms, in some of these markets won't be as long as they were in the past. And, as we look at, office turn up rate, office utilization, I think landlords are definitely thinking differently around the relationship with occupiers and how they make that, relationship a little bit more beneficial to both sides.

I think that evolution is great. One of the things, and. I look forward to it every year. I don't know how many years you've been doing it now, but you do a state of the industry, discussion with key leaders in in the industry. And I noticed some new faces on the list this year, which is fantastic.

But can you tell us a little bit about that in terms of, that that forum and what you hope to talk about during that session? 

Yeah, sure. So we're actually, this is our fourth year, came into being during COVID when everyone was feeling very disconnected. And the idea was to have the CEOs of the larger service provider, occupier services, or they all have a slightly different name.

So I don't want to, I'm not intentionally using one, but that group to come together and talk about You know what they're seeing happen in the industry, and I think it's rare. It almost never happens where, four or five of them are together in a room or so to speak in a virtual room to have that conversation.

And I think, we hear from the industry that everyone really enjoys that. And so the intent is You know, this year is to hear from them  mostly a little bit about what's happened, obviously, this past year, but mostly about what they're seeing and expecting of the future where their organizations are investing.

In change and how they're looking at partnering with their clients differently. And so we've actually opened up on, LinkedIn and our website, the ability to ask questions. So if anyone wants to submit questions or has something they want to ask one of those leaders, they are able to, and yeah, new faces because a lot of change in the organizations of those service providers.

So it'll be interesting to hear them talk about that as well. 

Yeah, agreed. And it's a great lineup. People that we know, some new faces. It'll be interesting to hear what the thoughts are in terms of where we're at in the industry and where those companies are going. So something I've listened to the last few years and really enjoy it.

So glad that you provide that to the general community because I think it's something that's valuable. So looking forward to that. 

Sneak preview and hopefully my marketing won't be upset by this, but we are going to do another one with a More real estate services focused. 

Oh great. 

And some of the maybe  More functionally focused service providers we'll put it that way so just a little bit of a different take but later towards spring.

So I think oh great. There was interest in hearing different perspectives from different firms. So 

yeah, good. So we'll put information when we launch our podcast, we'll put information about those events so that people can listen to those. Last question for me, the cornet, I think, provides a lot of value to, to, to the members.

Both from a service provider and an end user perspective, one of the things that I've seen value in, and I started in Cornet 20 years ago or so, and I've always been impressed with the young leader focus that the organization has had. I think it's done a great job of. providing the right type of training and education and networking events so that young leaders can build a career within corporate real estate and then continue to, maintain that network over a series of events and summits and gatherings and whatnot.

Obviously you've had a very interesting career in corporate real estate, so bouncing, between different different things. If you were to talk to a young leader, somebody coming out of college coming into the work world, what encouragement would you give them, with regard to corporate real estate as a career, what would your guidance to them be?

I'll start by saying one thing about the mentorship program. So A fantastic program. I've really enjoyed participating in it, but  You probably don't know this about me, but my business actually started because of a mentorship so when I was in my early 20s, I met my former business partner and who I started the firm with and At a conference and I was impressed by her career And kind of just went up to her and asked her if she would be my mentor.

And I still laugh at it because she was very direct in her response of, I don't know what that means to you, but you're not here to waste my time, you need to have a reason for these conversations with me, blah, blah, blah. And she put me in my place a little bit, but we mentorship. 

That then turned into a partnership that then turned into the firm that I have today. So the relationships that we have in this industry, it's so small, right? And so the relationships that you build, you never know where those will lead you. But I think, generally it's. a really, fun industry because there's so many different career paths that you could take and whether you're on the occupier side whether you're on the supplier side the consulting side I think there's within those buckets.

There's many different avenues and many things you can learn and so even if You know educationally come in from finance or from other areas there's a lot of opportunity for experiences within the real estate industry 

Yeah agreed and thank you. I think a great example of mentorship and a real world example of where it can go So very interesting.

Ingrid, thank you. We appreciate the time. Very interesting discussion. I think, our occupiers, will definitely get a lot out of, what we talked through today. Thanks again, for coming on the show today. It was a pleasure to have you. 

Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it.

And thanks to everybody who's listening. And we'll be back with another voice of the occupier soon. Thank you.