Scheduling Chronicles

Psychic's in the Corporate Real Estate World?

There was a recent article about a company making a decision on whether or not to invest in more office space or to simply renew their current lease. The decision came down to the wire, and when a decision couldn’t be made there was only one thing they could come up with to do… ask a psychic.

So, in a time when organizations are trying to be as efficient with their money as possible this company leaves the decision up to a psychic?

What do you think the reaction would be if your boss or board asked you a question and you shook the Magic 8 ball to get the answer? You’d likely find yourself kicked to the curb. What they’re looking for is a clear, concise answer with the data that supports it.

When it comes to corporate real estate, you can employ solutions that assist you in managing your resources and collecting actual space utilization data, which supports upgrading to a larger space, staying put, or even making more of a smaller space. This type of solution doesn’t leave you guessing.

Understanding Your Mobile Workforce Through Business Intelligence Will Increase Your Organization’s Bottom Line

In data pulled from the census, the number of people working from home or involved in some form of flex work environment in the U.S. could be anywhere from 2.8 million to 44.4 million people.

The trouble in using this data is that the range is far too wide, and nobody is tracking how frequently employees are using alternative workspace as a way to stay productive when heading into the office. If organizations had this data they would be able to better utilize their office space, and cut their real estate costs by selling off, or deciding not to renew a lease on underutilized space.

With Workplace Business Intelligence, organizations can track and better manage their resources. By tracking actual space utilization and understanding what their business may or may not need, they will be improving upon their energy efficiency, cutting real estate costs, and working smarter, all contributing to the bottom line.

Combating the Barriers When Implementing the Use of Alternative Workspace

Although the adoption of Alternative Workspace has certainly picked up, there are still barriers in the wider implementation.

Some of the obstacles that exist are:

1. Organizational Culture
2. Management Concerns
3. Resistance/ Fear of change
4. Executive Buy-in

A great way to combat these obstacles is with data. Many times we have discussed how Workplace Management Solutions can assist organizations in scheduling resources, managing space, detecting actual real estate utilization, and maintaining equipment. All of these systems allow organizations to better manage their alternative workspace, but you can also take the data from these systems and track utilization and see how their alternative workspace is benefiting your organization. All of this data can be turned into useful information by using Workplace Business Intelligence.

Recession Accelerating the Adoption of Alternative Workspace

A study by the New Ways of Working organization shows that over the past two years there has been significant accelerated adoption of Alternative Workspace practices being implemented, and the recession is being credited for the growth in the area.

The study shows that more than 4 in every 10 organizations have started implementing alternative workspace programs in the past 2 years. The recession has pressured many organizations to cut overhead and real estate costs as well as reduce business travel in order to remain competitive and retain the best people employed. This is all encouraging more worker mobility and an increase in remote options as well.

Coming out of the recession the concept and implementation of alternative workspace looks to have a positive impact for the short and long term. Initially these ideas of reduced travel and the implementation of mobile technologies were based on work/life balance for employees but now a major business driver has shifted to cost savings, making it a win-win for organizations and their employees alike.

The study also showed that increased employee mobility is leaving workspace underutilized. Organizations are reporting that 76% of their employees are using assigned workspace while 35% use alternative workspace. So the actual space utilization shows that 11% of the assigned space is being left unused.

“These results leave little doubt that alternative workplace programs are becoming valuable and perhaps critical initiatives as organizations strive to be more competitive by lowering their costs while attracting and retaining the ‘best and the brightest,’" says Dr. Joe Aki Ouye, co-founder of the New Ways of Working Network.

Learn more about Alternative Workspace and how you can cut real estate costs for your organization.

Wolters Kluwer Chooses PeopleCube’s Resource Scheduler To Deploy and Manage Alternative Workspace Programs

PeopelCube today announced that market-leading global information services and publishing company Wolters Kluwer has chosen the Resource Scheduler intelligent workspace management solution to help deploy and manage its alternative workspace programs including shared office-space environments.

“Wolters Kluwer clearly recognizes the benefits that can be gleaned from alternative workspace programs, including reducing real-estate, energy, and commuting costs and increasing employee loyalty and productivity by providing flexible and family-friendly workplaces,” said John T. Anderson, PeopleCube’s CEO. “PeopleCube is delighted to provide the technological solutions and consulting services that enable Wolters Kluwer to systematize policies, encourage adherence, monitor resource usage, and in general manage alternative workspaces and programs so that they perform to the company’s advantage.”

Due Diligence and Pilot Program Point to PeopleCube Solutions
Specifically, Wolters Kluwer chose PeopleCube’s Resource Scheduler for Outlook®/Exchange®, a product that seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Outlook to enable users to schedule resources from within Outlook, an environment with which the Wolters Kluwer staff is already familiar.

“We did our due diligence, reviewing market research and talking to other large enterprise customers,” said Dave Barban, director of corporate real estate for Wolters Kluwer. “Not only was PeopleCube the recommended solution, but they ran a ‘try before you buy’ pilot for us. The success of the pilot demonstrated that Resource Scheduler did indeed stand up to our workspace management requirements.”

Wolters Kluwer is using Resource Scheduler in conjunction with Steelcase’s RoomWizard display technology to enable employees to view room scheduling information on line and to book space either on site or remotely, at any time—without having to rely on dedicated staff to manage and monitor scheduling and use.

To ensure quick, easy, and secure on-site check-in for their alternative workspace environment, Wolters Kluwer has implemented PeopleCube’s Kiosk software, which enables employees to check in and out of their office reservations simply by swiping their security badges through a card reader located on or near a kiosk in a lobby.

Enabling Alternative Workspace
The company plans to use Resource Scheduler in a variety of ways. One of the first projects is a deployment in Wolters Kluwer’s Manhattan offices that have recently been built out and renovated expressly to support mobile workers. Ultimately Wolters Kluwer intends to implement alternate workspace programs in all applicable locations throughout its North American operations.

To ensure a smooth implementation and deployment of its alternative workspace projects, Wolters Kluwer purchased technical and business consulting services from PeopleCube, which were provided by PeopleCube both remotely and on site.

PeopleCube's Resource Scheduler 9.0 Integrates with Lotus Notes; Features Mobile Interface and Event and Visitor Management

PeopleCube recently announced a new version of it's on-demand workplace management solution, Resource Scheduler.  This new version is designed to make life easier for Lotus Notes users, mobile workers, and event planners through strong reporting and exceptional ease of use, while rendering alternative workspace and resource management more effective and efficient than ever before.

“In creating Resource Scheduler 9.0, we listened to customers and prospects, analyzed support calls, and performed usability testing to hone in on specific needs in terms of scheduling, services, and resource management,” said John T. Anderson, CEO of PeopleCube. “We term this ‘User-Centered Design’, and it is what enabled us to achieve the streamlined workflows and intuitive graphical user interface that are evident throughout Resource Scheduler 9.0.”

Today’s Mobile Worker

In a world where many more companies are implementing alternative workspace programs, employees increasingly need to perform business activities while in transit. Mobile workers expect applications and information to be available when they want them and on the device of their choice. Accordingly, Resource Scheduler 9.0 includes a mobile phone interface, rich web capabilities, and integration with personal calendaring systems such as Outlook.

With Resource Scheduler 9.0, mobile workers can use web-enabled mobile devices to find and book available workspace and meeting rooms, and to check in and out of space they’ve reserved in advance. These real-time web-based capabilities avoid the conflicts inherent in sync-based booking methods.

Lotus Notes Integration Improves Space Management

Resource Scheduler 9.0’s integration with the popular calendaring application Lotus Notes means that Notes users can now schedule both meeting attendees and meeting rooms, with supporting resources, all from within the familiar Notes environment. In addition to simplifying the overall Lotus Notes scheduling process, this eliminates room and resource double-bookings and provides users with insight into the characteristics of the resource (e.g., capacity, location, equipment) to ensure that the reserved resources suit their specific meeting requirements.

The Easier It Is To Check In, the More Likely They’ll Do It

To make it easier for workers to reserve and check into office facilities such as work spaces and meeting rooms—and for management to stay on top of space usage—Resource Scheduler 9.0 enables users to search for and schedule workspace directly from an interactive floor plan using any standard browser.

The same floor plans that are used in Resource Scheduler to integrate with reservation kiosks can now be accessed in a streamlined web interface, providing the space reservation simplicity needed to accelerate alternative workspace program acceptance. By providing the unique ability to view and schedule meeting rooms and other workspace using these floor plans, Resource Scheduler helps users find the space they need, by location, quickly and easily based on proximity to coworkers, meeting space, or other criteria, further enhancing collaboration and employee efficiency.

“Collaboration remains a vital element in the success of any business, especially given today’s modern mobile worker,” said Anderson. “The key is providing the infrastructure to facilitate that collaboration. Resource Scheduler 9.0’s innovative floor-plan functionality adds an entirely new dimension to scheduling shared workspace, making it easier for employees to find the right space in the right place at the right time.”

Visitor Management Made More Efficient and Secure

Resource Scheduler 9.0’s visitor management functionality allows personnel staffing a front desk to track the arrival and departure of visitors and to print badges by location (so, for example, the UK receptionist does not have the ability to print a visitor badge for the Manhattan office). Enabling employees to register visitors in advance gives organizations better knowledge of, and more control over, who is at their location at any given time and who is expected to arrive in the future.

“How visitors are greeted in the front lobby says a lot about an organization,” said Anderson. “Resource Scheduler 9.0 gives front-desk personnel a handle on who’s about to walk through the door, making it easier to greet visitors in a gracious and professional manner, while offering the security of knowing who is in the building at any given time.”

Helping Visible and Important Events Come Off Smoothly

While there are only a limited number of event planners in any given organization, the meetings they organize are usually the most visible and important. Resource Scheduler 9.0 lets event planners set up new events, capture critical event-related information, book resources, and make changes with a few simple clicks. It makes it possible to store detailed information about each event, provides better visibility into daily activities, and streamlines the workflow for creating new events.

Resource Scheduler 9.0 is designed to make event management as quick and easy as possible for event planners. For example, the daily activity view lets event planners review daily event activities at a glance and filter them by status and service orders. This view can be reserved for event planners or opened up to the entire organization. In addition, Resource Scheduler 9.0 gives event planners the ability to look up hosts from prior events, and to assign and track the status of events.

Tracking event costs and providing details to event hosts is the final component of planning an event. To help organizations answer the basic but critical question “How much did our event cost?,” Resource Scheduler 9.0 enables event planners to consolidate event orders in a single, printable view, including all resources, services, and costs associated with the event.

Enhanced Reporting for Effective Management of Corporate Real Estate

Above all, Resource Scheduler is a scheduling software solution for managing workspace, resources, and facilities. To support the ever-more-critical need to understand actual real estate utilization, Resource Scheduler 9.0 includes a new reporting system that allows users to save frequently run reports so they can be easily launched in the future. It also allows administrators to add new reports and organize existing reports into similar groups. Users appreciate the detailed report summaries and the ability to preview reports before running them.

For more information about Resource Scheduler’s extensive workplace scheduling, planning, and reporting capabilities, visit  http://www.peoplecube.com/products-resource-scheduler.htm.

PeopleCube Scores Successful 2009

PeopleCube today announced that it is concluding a highly successful business year in which it saw record sales of its flagship product, Resource Scheduler; increased its subscription service by 100 percent; delivered innovative technology; won a number of Fortune 1000 customers; and formed numerous partnerships.

 Tweet this: #PeopleCube Scores a Successful 2009 http://bit.ly/69SNEk

 As John Anderson, President and CEO of PeopleCube said, “The reason industry-leading firms from various market segments are adopting our innovative workplace management technology is that our products and associated consulting services provide solid ROI.  In a year when companies have been forced to consolidate operations and control costs, our sustained growth, particularly in our subscription business, is a testament to the overall value that our solutions provide both in the short and long term.”
 Highlighting PeopleCube’s success in 2009, the company signed several new enterprise accounts, including 33 Fortune 1000 firms and such household names as Merck Pharmaceuticals, Thomson Reuters, Carnival Cruise Lines, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Deutsche Bank. A significant number of new customer deals involved replacing competing products. While PeopleCube was increasing its market share at its competitors’ expense, it succeeded in maintaining a client retention rate of greater than 97 percent.

Pushing Technology Forward
 Throughout 2009, PeopleCube continued to introduce innovative, industry-leading technology, bringing to market offerings such as:

• Workplace BI—The industry’s first workplace business intelligence tool that enables organizations to effectively monitor, measure, and manage utilization of real estate to maximize value and reduce overhead; Workplace BI enables organizations to gain an accurate view of both current and future real-estate needs, potentially enabling corporations to save millions of dollars in direct operating costs within their real-estate portfolio.
• Workplace Utilization Analysis Services—A new consulting service designed to help organizations maximize real-estate utilization and organizational efficiency by leveraging detailed analysis of workspace utilization data; this service gives companies valuable insight into how their real estate is being leveraged and enables them to make educated decisions about how to best manage their shared corporate assets so that they can reduce costs and enhance operational efficiency.
• PeopleCounter—A product that fills the long-time missing link in corporate real-estate management by giving companies the ability to track actual vs. planned utilization of space; PeopleCounter enables customers to automatically capture the number of people entering and exiting the scheduled space in order to track how space is actually being utilized, and to measure and analyze the collected data.

Adding Value Through Partnerships
PeopleCube’s relationship with CountWise, which helped bring about the PeopleCounter solution, is one example of the partnership approach PeopleCube leverages to extend the value of PeopleCube’s solutions for its customers. In all during 2009, PeopleCube forged partnerships with more than 10 organizations that are leaders in their respective fields.

Other significant partnerships formed during the past year include relationships with AMX, Crestron, and Tandberg, which enable customers to more efficiently manage rooms and telepresence systems; IBM/Maximo to help customers manage asset lifecycle and other maintenance needs; and a relationship with Stegmeier Consulting Group to facilitate change management for flex work and other alternative work environments.

Looking Toward a Bright Future
Looking ahead, Anderson said, “The future is bright for 2010 and beyond. This year we laid the groundwork for releasing a new version of Resource Scheduler early in 2010 that will feature a new user interface, event and visitor management capabilities, mobile access, new enterprise reports, and enhanced workflow to improve ease of use. This latest development effort is designed to further increase efficiency and effectiveness by accommodating the changing needs of our core constituents, facility managers and executives with responsibility for maximizing the use of corporate real estate.”

Report: Steep Rise in Demand for Business Intelligence Software

According to research firm Access Marketing International (AMI) Partners, the demand for business intelligence (BI) software as a stand-alone solution among North American companies is growing at a rapid pace, with as many as 600,000 small-medium businesses to deploy BI software through 2009. 

But why?  And why now?  As Nathan Eddy of eWeek points out, AMI sees BI software as a growth category because of the “piggyback feature” of ongoing adoption and investment in ERP/CRM systems.  But it goes well beyond just ERP/CRM systems.  AMI believes the need to derive better, deeper insight into day-to-day operations is critical to reducing costs, and that has placed further importance on stand-alone BI systems.  In fact, Nichelle McKenzie, a research analyst at AMI-Partners, believes that companies that rely on BI software reap the benefits of data integration across multiple business units and the simplicity of accessing self-service reporting and analysis. 

Further supporting AMI’s claim, technology research firm Gartner reported earlier this year that by 2012, business units will control more than 40% of the BI budget and by 2010, 20% of organizations will have a software as a service BI tool in place as part of their BI portfolio.

Capturing Actual Utilization of Space Webinar

PeopleCube will be conducting a series of webinars focusing on the topic of capturing the actual utilization of space.  These webinars are driven by the need for corporate real estate executives, human resource executives, facilities managers and others to identify more than simply how their shared workspace, conference rooms and other real estate are being scheduled but rather if they are actually being used. 

More companies are mandating cost reductions and because real estate is typically an organizations largest expense after payroll, that has become a target area.  The challenge has long been "how can I reduce my real estate costs if I don't know how that space is being used?"  In fact it is not uncommon for companies to think they need to expand their real estate overhead because people within the organization claim conference rooms are constantly booked or alternative workspace is typically unavailable. 

These webinars are designed to showcase the value of understanding the true utilization of real estate. Using the right real estate scheduling, occupancy detection, and utilization analysis tools, attendees will learn not only how to avoid making unnecessary real estate acquisitions, but maximize the full value of the real estate you already have. It is now easy to capture actual utilization of space.  

Titled Capturing Actual Utilization of Space: Uncovering the "Holy Grail" of Real Estate Management, these webinars are currently scheduled for November 4th at 11:00 am EST and November 10th at 2:00 pm EST.  For more information or to register, visit http://www.peoplecube.com/live-capturing-actual-use-space-webinar-registration.htm.

PeopleCube and CountWise Join Forces to Deliver Innovative Tool for Tracking Actual Utilization of Workspace

PeopleCube today announced that they have formed a partnership to deliver a real-estate management and measurement solution called PeopleCounter.

PeopleCounter enables customers to schedule shared workspace and other corporate assets, track actual utilization of that space with the CountWise Video Imaging/Shape Recognition technology, and measure and analyze the resulting data to discover actual versus planned space utilization. By implementing PeopleCounter, customers are able to understand how real estate is being utilized in order to make educated, cost-saving decisions regarding their real-estate overhead.

The PeopleCounter solution utilizes the I-Count™ people-counting technology from CountWise. With greater than 95% accuracy, this stand-alone video based counting system is the most accurate and dependable product available worldwide. I-Count delivers multi-zone, bi-directional pedestrian traffic counting by combining shape recognition and motion detection in a robust and affordable product.

PeopleCounter integrates I-Count with PeopleCube’s alternative workspace and resource management solution, Resource Scheduler, and Workplace BI, the industry’s first workspace business intelligence tool for tracking and analyzing real-estate utilization. Customers first use Resource Scheduler to schedule shared workspace and other corporate assets, then I-Count automatically tracks the number of people entering and exiting the scheduled space. The people-counting information is then fed into Workplace BI, where the data is analyzed and measured.

The end result is more than just data, but rather valuable, actionable real-estate utilization information that enables customers, for the first time, to track and analyze not just planned real estate utilization, but actual real estate utilization. It’s this actual utilization information that makes it possible for customers to make educated decisions on how to effectively manage their real estate portfolio.

Check it out at http://www.peoplecube.com/products-peoplecounter.htm.