Service Oriented Real Estate Business

One way to develop existing office building is to improve it as a service platform instead of just renovating it. When seeing the real estate from a service-oriented point of view it becomes evident that in addition to the physical elements there are many service elements also. This has been noticed for quite a long time now and the existing service elements are quite constant, at least in Finland. Quite similar service elements may not be used to differentiate real estate owners from other possible landlords. Because of this standardisation Finnish real estate owners are considering new ways of competing and differentiating with service elements in ever more fierce competition. The aim of this article is to present business premises as a service oriented product and to envision some new potential service elements to high-end business premises. To reach this aim, representatives from real estate sector organizations were invited to 2 workshops held during the year 2005. The results from these workshops were complemented by two separate thematic interviews in two different real estate owner organizations. These empirical findings were then backed up by a literature review. As key conclusion 4 potential new service-oriented elements of real estate product were found. These are improved customer relationship management, services meant to improve well-being of end-users (the employees), increased building owner-service provider-tenant interaction and increasing the amount of service offerings in the early stage of the customer relationship. The literature on real estate from product point of view is scarce. Still understanding the real estate business from this point of helps both real estate owners and real estate related service providers in understanding the tenants. New elements that are introduced could be used to add value to the tenants and through that increase business performance of the real estate owners. It also helps them in finding new business potential and in differentiation. To knowledge the Finnish situation may also help real estate actors in other countries to see their business from a new angle. Theoretically this work contributes by bringing some new ideas from business literature to facilities management field.