As you all know, I have been involved in quite a few sales cycles for Integrated Workplace Management Systems (IWMS). I have always felt a healthy reluctance against 750-question Request for Proposals (RFP’s) Questionnaires. Continue Reading

Today we have a guest post of Mike Singleton and Anthony Brown who are with Houston-based eBusiness Strategies, LLC (www.ebiz-strategy.com) . In their post they discuss IWMS selection processes.

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Today we have guest post authored by Ken Brown of Lucernex. In this post he elaborates about the international challenges that companies face when expanding globally. As we see those challenges as well I have already written a post series about internationalization challenges.

While no one can say for sure, it appears based on the recent positive GDP announcement, that the U.S. economy has bottomed out and we are now in the midst of what may be a longer and slower recovery when compared to past economic recessions.  The events of the past 24 months have forced growth-minded real estate companies to re-examine or retool their business models to optimize efficiencies and harness opportunities.  Economists believe future growth is expected to come from overseas markets, especially Asia and the “BRIC” nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China).

Many corporate and retail real estate companies are using this opportunity to expand globally into Asia, Europe, and the BRIC nations.  New stores are opening and new manufacturing facilities are under construction.  There are many reasons for this shift.  Growth in the United States is not expected to be as strong as projected growth from the emerging markets.  And, the financing markets may be more receptive to opportunities in these faster growing regions of the world.  As part of a push by companies to tap into global growth, companies must accordingly adopt a strategy to “globalize their corporate real estate portfolio.

However, moving into foreign and emerging markets does not come without risk and challenge.  In order for any company to operate a global real estate portfolio, they need to be able to standardize and track the real estate life-cycle process.  This may span several different countries and include different languages, currencies, time zones, and measurement systems.

As an example, imagine a United States headquartered corporation with manufacturing facilities opening in Brazil, China and Canada.  How is this United States-based company expected to be able to track the development and eventual operation of these different facilities in real-time, and be able to actively manage all processes? At Lucernex, we believe it is critical to implement a system that will standardize all variables for a company’s global real estate portfolio.  The newest version of IWMS software can do just that – easily track and standardize currency, measurements and time zones.  And, this software will also help a company better track its leases, costs, and employee count, too.  Lx IWMS also now has Lx LseMod software integrated providing fully internationalized lease analysis using any currency or measurement with all results flowing automatically into Lx IWMS site selection module for optimal decision making.

Companies using Lucernex applications are actively benefiting from these tools and have found the value and efficiency it provides to be critical to the real estate development and management process. In today’s emerging global real estate business, if an IWMS system cannot handle a company’s complete portfolio, that company is at an extreme disadvantage.

Today we have added another major IWMS vendor to the IWMS solution list.
AMTDirect.The IWMS vendor and supplier of Real Estate oriented functionalities has been added to the solutions overview. We will gather even more information in the coming few weeks.

Check AMTDirect out here

Over the last couple of years IWMS vendors have extended their customer horizon from local region / country specific customers to the large Fortune 500 multinationals.

When IWMS vendors are crossing borders, they have to face all kinds of internationalization (i18n) challenges. In this week’s post about I18n challenges of IWMS’s, multi-time zone will be discussed. Continue Reading

On IWMSnews.com we have published quite a few articles about Software Selection. In addition to our posts, Terry Coull CEO and Founder of Software Idols, Software Selection experts is publishing a software selection series in the coming weeks.

The challenge

Selecting the right software can be an expensive, time consuming and risky experience for any business or technology manager. Before embarking on a software selection project, the following questions come to mind:

• Do you find the software market too confusing and complicated? Do you find research houses describe the players from a market presence point of view but leave one wondering which vendor is the most suited to one’s software needs? Continue Reading

Over the last couple of years IWMS vendors have extended their customer horizon from local region / country specific customers to the large Fortune 500 multinationals.

When IWMS vendors are crossing borders, they have to face all kinds of internationalization (i18n) challenges. In this week’s post about I18n challenges of IWMS’s, multi-measurement will be discussed. Continue Reading

Over the last couple of years IWMS vendors have extended their customer horizon from local region / country specific customers to the large Fortune 500 multinationals.

When IWMS vendors are crossing borders, they have to face all kinds of internationalization (i18n) challenges. In this week’s post one of the most common I18n challenges of IWMS will be discussed; multi-language. Continue Reading