Don Pigott, a facility management consultant, said, "There is a model and an approach to metrics and performance management based on the concept of the balanced scorecard that is common to many large enterprises that we have worked with." He noted, "What differentiates each enterprise is how well or not this concept is understood and applied."

Pigott pointed out that (1) "CREM financial performance measures the tangible outcomes of CREM strategy" in contributing to shareholder value growth; (2) "the right organizational processes create value for [CREM’s internal] customers and shareholders;" and (3) "the right [CREM] organizational assets drive ongoing improvement in [CREM] organizational processes."

Don Moulton believes a key to effective CREM is "leveraging standardized processes." He uses them, and trains his service providers to do likewise.

He measures and communicates his department’s progress through five metrics, which he cited from memory:

Roger Nesti

• Dollars the department has saved the company;
• Agent commissions saved or shared;
• Satisfaction with CREM operations of internal customers as measured by a five-point-scale survey;
• A measure of CREM involvement in corporate projects; and
• Growth in the application of the Virtual Premise transactions management software.

Roger Nesti manages Avery Dennison’s global real estate operations with a staff of two and plenty of help from real estate service providers. He said he’s still asking the question "How should I benchmark?" even though he has a metrics package. Two measures he currently uses are "real estate costs as a percent of corporate sales" and "real estate cost per square foot for each business unit."

The question-and-answer period after the presentations brought out several interesting issues. One audience member asked "How do you come to grips with measuring CREM’s impact on corporate productivity?"

Rick Little of Weyerhaeuser asked, "What metrics do you use for surplus property disposition?" Nesti said, "We don’t measure it." Moulton replied that his department reports the net of disposition proceeds over the property’s book value.

Taking a different spin on the productivity issue, Sean Nugent of Pfizer asked, "How do you measure the impact of CREM on internal customer productivity?" The question provoked interest but no conclusive responses.

In conclusion, the workshop provided an outstanding short forum for sharing ideas and raising questions about CREM metrics.