A record number of corporate real estate professionals from across Asia and around the globe have come to Beijing for the 2006 Asia Global Summit, themed "Convergence 2006: Risk, Reward and Real Estate." Beijing's 270 attendees are an all-time high for the Asia Summit, now in its fourth year.

Jeffrey (Jeff) Elie, Vice President of Real Estate and Facilities for Kaplan, Inc., and Chairman of CoreNet Global, opened the Summit and welcomed attendees. "The world truly is flat, and China is emerging to be a global force," he said.

Following Elie's remarks, Mike Zamora, Senior Manager, Asia Pacific and Japan Regions, Cisco Systems, and Chair, CoreNet Global Asia, touched on the theme of convergence. "This is a very timely theme," he observed. "From a corporate real estate perspective, we are witnessing an increased convergence of real estate, service providers and public institutions. And the dynamic new economies in Asia are leapfrogging the more developed economies in the West."

After Zamora's comments, Bruce Davidson, Regional Director, Corporate Solutions for Jones Lang LaSalle (sponsor of General Session I) came forward to introduce the first keynote speaker, Marilyn Tam.

Marilyn Tam

A key part of her message is that business leaders today have a responsibility that is much bigger than the bottom line alone. "Being socially responsible will be a competitive edge in the 21st century," she said.

Tam, born the second of five children in Hong Kong's New Territories, saw firsthand the social ills of the time: widespread child labor, lack of a living wage, environmental degradation and more. At age 11, she knew she wanted to help make life better for others. "I was inspired to make a difference," she recalled. "I vowed that I would make it my life's mission to make a positive difference in the world."

And she did. In time, Tam rose to senior leadership roles with major companies. "But I never forgot my background and why I was doing what I was doing," she said. "Every place we went, we tried to make a difference by improving wages and working conditions. Others in the company would say, 'You are crazy. What are you doing this? You are costing us money.'"

But Tam was determined to follow the path she had set out on. "The changes we made reduced defects and brought about other improvements," she recalled. "We got better quality products, higher productivity and healthier and happier workers."

In time Tam got support from outside groups. "In the early to mid-1990s, there was a lot of concern about companies using child labor," she said. "And it became a competitive advantage for us that we weren't doing it."

Yet challenges and concerns remain today. In the last 20 years, Tam cautioned, there has been a rapid, global conversion of rural areas and farmland into urban landscapes. And there has been a strong push toward Western-style consumerism around the globe.

On the positive side, she noted, access to health care is improving. And there's increased consumer awareness and demand for better working conditions and environmental protection.

Looking ahead, Tam sees a major shift in the global economic balance as countries like China, India, Russia and Brazil close the gap with the West. As this occurs, the sustainability of the planet is coming into question as countries grapple with how to balance economic development with its attendant social and environmental costs.

The author of the acclaimed How to Use What You've Got to Get What You Want, now in its second printing, cited four major principles that corporations and corporate executives should follow:

1. Tell the truth. "The integrity and reputation of you and your business depends on it," she said. "And there are negative consequences when we don't," pointing to celebrated cases such as Enron and WorldCom.

3. Make big mistakes. "If you're not making mistakes, you're not learning, and you're not growing," Tam underscored. "Keep improving, or be left behind."

Tam finished her presentation by pointing out that each and every company can take positive steps and collaborate with others to manage responsibly and sustainably for the long-term good. "And we can vote with our purchases," she concluded.

• John Gilleard, Ph.D., Professor, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
• Jan Ake Granath, Ph.D., Visiting Professor, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
• Mary Wan, General Manager (Administrative Services), Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital
• Jeremiah Lee, Ideation Manager, Haworth
• Erwin Rezelman, V.P./COO, SAP Labs China
• Haijie Ding, Ph.D., Cognitive Psychologist, Haworth

Education Program 1 presenters (left to right): John Gilleard, Ph.D.; Mary Wan; Jan Ake Granath, Ph.D.; Haijie Ding, Ph.D.; Jeremiah Lee; Erwin Rezelman.

Moderator George McKay, Managing Director Corporate Services, Colliers International, introduced the session and the first case study, which dealt with SAP Labs China's new high-tech campus in Shanghai.

SAP Labs China had grown rapidly, from 30 employees to 400 in just three years. It needed a new campus that would help people get the most out of their time in the office and lead to high performance.

"We wanted a workplace to motivate people to perform at the highest levels, and also to retain people," Rezelman said. "Our attrition rate is only 4 percent, against a high-tech industry average in China of 17 to 19 percent, and we wanted to keep it low. Our most valuable asset is our people."

The SAP corporate culture, he explained, has flat hierarchies and an open management style. It values creativity and innovation. "And mistakes are allowed," he said.

The new workspace was designed to foster collaboration. "Innovation doesn't occur in formal environments, I can assure you of that," Rezelman emphasized.

SAP Labs China partnered with Haworth to design the new facility. "We try to align the physical environment with how people think and act," explained Lee. Lee's team conducted work style surveys, a pre-occupancy study and focus group interviews to gather the information needed to match the space with workers' needs.

"The new design was perceived to be significantly more collaborative, but somewhat less private, than the current space," he revealed.

SAP Labs China moved into their new space at Pudong Software Park on 15 March, 2006.

The second case study centered on a usability study conducted by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University following the renovation of an operating theatre at the Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital in Hong Kong. The study was one of several Gilleard and Granath have conducted to understand more about workplace usability. "What we'd really like to find out is usability vs. mere functionality," Granath said.

As Wan explained, the hospital's operating room (OR) space was designed years ago. Since then, rapid technological change has added tremendously to the complexity of the operating room environment, resulting in operative inefficiency and safety problems.

"We took a fresh look at the OR," Wan said. "In just five months' time, the operating room space was redesigned. We achieved greater usability, with an active interface between technology and user. It optimizes our work flow, enables our OR team to concentrate on treating patients and minimizes wasted effort."

Gilleard noted the important role of the hospital's chief surgeon in driving this change. "You need strong leadership from the top," he said.

• A population of 1.3 billion (with an expanding middle class)
• Year after year of 7 to 9 percent economic growth
• Political stability, with a fairly consistent policy direction

• The speed of its movement. "China made the decision that it wanted to go forward quickly," she said.
• Its share of world production
• Its appetite for resources (currently buying 20 to 25 percent of many world commodities, and even higher proportions in some cases)

Lois Dougan Tretiak

The world's most populous country will be pushed to make changes, Tretiak said. "It will be pushed to continue appreciating the renminibi (RMB), or freely float it. It'll be pushed to export less and to show restraint toward Taiwan. And it'll be encouraged to improve on human rights."

Today China's $2.2 trillion economy is dwarfed by the United States ($12.5 trillion). "But we believe China in 2030 will have a significant percentage of the world's economy," Tretiak predicted.

China can maintain its dizzying growth over the next decade if issues relating to energy, people, infrastructure and social inequalities are managed well. "The overriding issue today is the issue of urban-rural disparities," she underscored. Those disparities have grown worse in recent years.

Among the likely changes in the years ahead: China's government will begin to focus inward. "China is rethinking the primacy of exports as a growth engine and shifting its emphasis to domestic concerns, such as quality of growth and filling the income gap," she said. That policy will increase spending on people's well-being and in turn boost domestic consumption.

Intellectual property rights (IPR) continue to be a concern for many companies considering investing in China. "Technology, like a high tide, raises all companies," Tretiak said. "The counterfeiters acquire new technology quickly." China is indeed changing, she concluded. "But we are being changed in the process. Just who is changing whom? Can we - countries and companies - cope with China's size and demands without being intimidated by them?"

Facilitating panel discussion was Linda DeMars, Vice President Program Development, CoreNet Global. Panelists included Katherine Tsang, China CEO, Standard Chartered Bank; Eric Canale, Director Real Estate & Facilities Asia Pacific, EMC²; and Philip Ross, CEO, Cordless Group.

General Session III Panel (left to right): Linda DeMars, Katherine Tsang, Philip Ross, and Eric Canale.

DeMars set the stage for the discussion by stating CoreNet Global's 2010 forecast (prepared in the fall of 2004) for integrated resources. "By 2010, strategic real estate functions will be performed in the context of integrated resources," she said, referring to the blending and integration of key support functions such as corporate real estate, IT and HR.

Key business drivers, including technology, globalization, the changing nature of work, innovation and corporate social responsibility are combining to create the new networked enterprise.

"And this new model is changing the role of corporate real estate," she said. "Corporate real estate professionals are changing themselves into workplace strategists. Workplace strategists are using an integrated viewpoint on organizational resources to maximize the competitiveness of their organizations."

Tsang discussed the importance of a people-based approach to workplace design. "In the optimal corporate model, people should be at the center," she said. "There's an old Chinese saying: If you want to do something well, use a sharp instrument. Well, in the workplace, people are the sharp instrument."

Tsang encouraged the audience to be forward-looking, strategic and creative in workplace design. "And remember, people always come first."

Ross explained the tremendous impact that new technologies are having, and will have, on the workplace. Much as the telephone and the typewriter had an enormously disruptive impact on buildings and the workplace when invented more than 100 years ago, today the Internet will have a similarly disruptive impact, he predicted.

"We think there's a huge change happening. Is the office the best place to put people to do productive work? No. We believe that buildings of the future will be accommodating a very different kind of work."

One of the core trends Ross cited is what he termed "the death of the phone." All telephony will be moving to the Internet, he predicted. "As long as you have a data connection, the death of distance is now with us."

Set to debut later this year are wireless LAN devices built into mobile phones. "That means you can get voice over IP," Ross explained. "That will be a very disruptive technology, and it will have a huge impact on how people work in buildings."

Yet another big-impact development is Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). "For a few cents, you can tag anything," he said. "That means you'll be able to see, in real time, what's happening in a building."

Canale provided the real estate perspective for the session. He cited three trends driving integrated workplace strategy: globalization, the changing nature of the workplace and networked leadership.

"Why do we need to converge? It's competitive advantage," he said. "The converged approach will deliver better results than the stovepipe approach."