First Serve Strategies

Archive for the ‘Business Strategy’ Category

During my most recent trip to Italy I was once again reminded of a difference between Americans and Italians. While walking the streets of Rome I witnessed people engaged with one another in discussion and fellowship both day and night. I saw it in and around the restaurants, the squares, the fountains and on the sidewalks. Time seemed to take on a different meaning.

The Greek language has two different words to describe time. One provides the root for our word chronology, and describes time from the perspective of moving through time. The second refers to time as a moment—a good time was had by all. What struck me as I walked the streets of Rome is that Americans all too often view the things that happen to us on our way to our destinations as distractions or things we must endure along the way. To most Italians these distractions are what life is all about.

Upon further reflection I have come to believe that successful leaders have the ability to capitalize on both elements of time. The first is obvious. Through strong organization skills and the ability to prioritize, effective leaders are able to accomplish a great deal in a short amount of time. While not as obvious, the second is even more important. By being in the moment, and remaining receptive to those we encounter along the way, we can gain a great deal. In addition to developing stronger relationships, being in the moment opens our minds to take advantage of the serendipity that surrounds us. By keeping our eyes open to the possibilities of our everyday encounters we might just find solutions to our toughest problems.

©Mark P. Loschiavo

When a business gets started, the founding members spend a great deal of time together visioning what the company will be. Often, they spend more time together than they do with their friends and families. It is a very intense time where there are endless discussions about what they want the company to look like, what makes them unique in the marketplace, to whom they will offer their products and services, and how they intend to deliver those products and services. Exit strategies are also a topic of discussion. During these times much dreaming for the future occurs. A common story is developed and a common language takes form. In short, the culture and the strategy for the company starts to take shape-either explicit or implied.

If the company is successful, structure and organization will soon follow. At this stage the founding members will often compartmentalize responsibilities among themselves in order to optimize their time. Once this occurs they find themselves spending less and less time together. When they do meet it is typically to discuss monthly measurements or to deal with a particular crisis.

As time goes on the management team becomes consumed with the operational issues of maintaining the company infrastructure, managing customer satisfaction and growing the company. If successful, the company continues to take on more employees to handle the increasing demands-still little discussion about the company vision.

As long as the company is growing rapidly the leadership team is happy and morale remains high throughout the organization. Everyone has plenty to do just keeping up with structure, performance and growth.

But once the growth begins to slow, things change, and the focus often turns to maintaining existing accounts and rethinking the structure of the company-the beginning of the slippery slope, and possibly the beginning of the end.

Mark P. Loschiavo, President of First Serve Strategies talks about what you, as CEO, can do to avoid the slippery slope and optimize your company’s growth over the long-term.

©Mark P. Loschiavo

E-Tenants.com started out as a way to help Brandywine Realty Trust keep its tenants happy. 

With the click of a mouse, the online help-and-information service offers a variety of features for the office landlord’s tenants – and their employees. They can report burned-out lightbulbs, hook up with nearby businesses, buy tickets, and get advice on fun things to do over the weekend.

Now, after a year of studying how people use e-Tenants.com, Brandywine implemented a major upgrade yesterday and said it was ready to sell the service to other landlords.

But not to direct competitors, says Mark P. Loschiavo, chief technology officer of e-Tenants.com, a unit of Brandywine.

“Quality space has become a given, the service a landlord provides has become a differentiator,” Loschiavo said.

Brandywine, a Newtown Square real estate investment trust, is the Philadelphia area’s largest office landlord. Though Liberty Property Trust, of Malvern, is bigger overall, Brandywine owns more office space in this region – 22 million square feet occupied by 1,500 tenant companies, most of them in the Philadelphia suburbs.

Virtually all major players in the office-rental business are using computer technology to improve response time on repair requests and to track performance in other tenant-retention issues. And many are developing products similar to e-Tenant.com.

But with 65 percent of its tenants, up from 50 percent a month ago, using e-Tenant, Brandywine believes it is ahead of the pack.

E-Tenant.com is the brainchild of Jerry Sweeney, Brandywine’s chief executive officer, who has made tenant retention a key part of his company’s strategy. He has invested $2 million in its development and hired a five-person staff to support its operation.

When a tenant’s employee signs up for the free service, his or her phone number, title and location are recorded, but this information is not for sale.

It is used only to speed the process of reporting maintenance requests. All the tenant needs to do is click on the “service request” icon and describe the problem. That message – including previously reported data – is flashed to a repair person’s radio pager, Barbara L. Yamarick, a Brandywine senior vice president, said.

“We monitor how long it takes for the repair to be completed,” Loschiavo added.

The Internet service gives small companies resources previously available only to big firms, Sweeney said.

For example, all of the businesses listed on the e-Tenants site have been checked out - a job a large company’s purchasing department would do. “We have a high comfort level that they are an excellent service provider,” Yamarick said.

“If they don’t do a good job, we pull them,” Loschiavo said.

New tenants can sign up as soon as a lease is signed.

The site lists businesses that help with the move-in – including a relocation firm that coordinates everything from moving furniture and arranging telephone service to ordering business cards.

The site also helps users find nearby places to have lunch and shop for a wide range of products and services – including some that meet personal needs such as dry cleaners, car-repair garages, florists and gift shops. These listings are customized for each neighborhood where Brandywine has a building.

With many companies shrinking their support staffs, Brandywine decided to add, at its expense, an online concierge that will do research and other chores a secretary once did.

Tenants can e-mail a request and get a response later. Or they can exchange immediate text messages with a concierge staff member, who is fairly quick with answers and help with shopping.

To demonstrate, Loschiavo asked for an Italian restaurant in Jamaica, where he would soon be going on vacation, and the concierge found one.

When asked for a bed and breakfast in tiny Barnard, Vt., the concierge first suggested one 45 minutes away. Pressed for one in the village, she persisted and found one. She also suggested nearby restaurants that the Barnard innkeeper, Gary Robison, later said were “very nice.”

Tenants also can ask for travel directions. The concierge responds with the kind of turn-by-turn instructions one gets from map-software programs, including the driving time under normal conditions.

“We’ve tried all sorts of questions – both related to business and children’s homework,” Yamarick said, “and we’ve never been able to stump them.”