Interview...
David Nelson - Principal
Westmark Harris Advisors

Background... David Nelson, principal at Westmark Harris Advisors, responded to three e-mailed questions on November 11, 1999. Below is an edited version of the interview. Westmark Harris Advisors, based in Santa Monica, CA, offers a comprehensive business process suite for corporate real estate management. The Strategen system includes lease administration, transaction management, capital projects and web-based reporting. Founded in 1992, the firm's clients include MCI Worldcom, Procter & Gamble, Pfizer and Dean Witter.

Pike: How do companies successfully promote the use of information systems across their organizations?

Nelson: Intranets and extranets enable CRE (corporate real estate) managers to publish ratios of real estate numbers mixed with business figures. For example, occupancy cost per person can be compared across different divisions, regions and facility types. ... This draws CRE managers into discussions about space planning and location choices that affect cost per square foot and square feet per person. Some companies publish this in "static" HTML, while others use on-line analytical tools that give them the ability to "drill down" right there on the CRE intranet. All of this raises the profile of corporate real estate as a key value-added resource in the company.

Pike: What types of web reports do employees and outside vendors request most frequently?

Nelson: Three types: (1) Critical date reports in all kinds of different formats; (2) key ratio reports for measures such as occupancy cost per person, cost per square foot, square feet per person, and occupancy cost per person; and (3) lease abstracts that combine financials, dates, lease terms, and contact information. Some publish as static HTML right off Strategen's screen. And one new client is using our PDF generator to post "canned reports" automatically to their intranet every night.

Pike: Can you integrate third-party data, e.g., comparable sales, market reports, into Strategen?

Nelson: Yes, Strategen comes with integrated web-browsing functionality right in the application. There are user-defined fields to store information like comparables, market data and demographics. Plus you can attach any type of document to the database and access it in the native application at the touch of a button.

--Peter