Because corporate real estate correlates directly with business objectives and thus has direct impact on company success, its involvement in the overall strategy process is crucial. A systematic planning of all real estate related business activities and a regular adjustment with the corporate strategy ensure a maximum utilization of potentials within the operational real estate portfolio. The particular challenge to be met at this point is to link mostly long-term real estate decisions with a corporate strategy that has to flexibly adapt to a rapidly changing environment.

By collecting the relevant data of its corporate real estate portfolio, most financial institutions have already provided the basis for a strategic management of the resource “real estate”. Nevertheless an explicitly formulated real estate strategy is often missing. And even if such a strategy exists, it lacks the institutionalized link with the corporate strategy and does not operationalize specific goals and objectives for middle management and staff.