THE VALUE OF IMPLEMENTING AN OCCUPANCY PLANNING TOOL AT BMO

A CASE STUDY

PRESENTED BY:

Nada FarahSr. Manager, Workplace Strategy BMO

BMO Financial Group serves more than 12 million personal, commercial, corporate and institutional customers in North America and internationally

Ian MorleyCofounder & Chief EvangelistSerraview

Serraviewa leading provider of workplace management & optimization software in North America and Australia, delivering tools that drive better strategic CRE decisions and huge bottom line savings

PRESENTED BY:

Occupancy Planning Challenges at BMO

41Buildings

292Floors

6 millionSquare feet

47,000Employees

SPACE AND PEOPLE:

Occupancy Planning Challenges at BMO

BUs claimed 2% vacancybut reality was closer to 10% vacancy

VACANCY:

Occupancy Planning Challenges at BMO

Observation studies show 40% of space not utilized on a daily basis due to vacation, sick leave, or working outside the office

UTILIZATION:

Why Focus on Occupancy?

Real estate is the 2nd or 3rd highest cost for most companies

Why Focus on Occupancy?

Real estate is the 2nd or 3rd highest cost for most companies

Efficient use of space can lead to significant cost reductions

Why Focus on Occupancy?

Real estate is the 2nd or 3rd highest cost for most companies

Efficient use of space can lead to significant cost reductions

Optimizing space requires accurate understanding of occupancy & utilization

Why Focus on Occupancy?

Real estate is the 2nd or 3rd highest cost for most companies

Efficient use of space can lead to significant cost reductions

Optimizing space requires accurate understanding of occupancy & utilization

Accurate data is needed to support space decisions

Real estate is the 2nd or 3rd highest cost for most companies

Efficient use of space can lead to significant cost reductions

Optimizing space requires accurate understanding of occupancy & utilization

Accurate data is needed to support space decisions

LOBs also benefit from knowing where people are

Why Focus on Occupancy?

BMO’s Difficulties Managing & Planning Space

NO BUY-IN ABOUT

OCCUPANCY PLANNING

BMO’s Difficulties Managing & Planning Space

NO BUY-IN ABOUT

OCCUPANCY PLANNING

LACK OF TRANSPARENCY

ABOUT VACANCY

BMO’s Difficulties Managing & Planning Space

NO BUY-IN ABOUT

OCCUPANCY PLANNING

LACK OF TRANSPARENCY

ABOUT VACANCY

MANUAL COLLECTION OF

OCCUPANCY DATA

Problems With Manual Data Collection

TIME CONSUMING

Problems With Manual Data Collection

RESOURCE INTENSIVETIME CONSUMING

Problems With Manual Data Collection

RESOURCE INTENSIVETIME CONSUMING

POINT-IN-TIME COLLECTION MEANSINFORMATION IS QUICKLY OUTDATED

Problems With Manual Data Collection

RESOURCE INTENSIVETIME CONSUMING

POINT-IN-TIME COLLECTION MEANSINFORMATION IS QUICKLY OUTDATED

NO ONE TRUSTS THE DATA

THE RESULT?

The Result?

• Inefficient use of real estate footprint

The Result?

• Inefficient use of real estate footprint

• Difficulty making strategic decisions

The Result?

• Inefficient use of real estate footprint

• Difficulty making strategic decisions

• Unrealized savings (potentially 40% of space at $10,000 a desk per year)

to help us take control of our space management

BMO Needed an Occupancy Planning Tool

Confused about evaluating space management software? Get your free copy of this helpful guide:

5 Critical Comparison Points for Workplace Management Software

This is Not Good Enough

This used to be all we knew about our space: floor plans

and teams

Why It’s Not Good Enough

• Occupancy cost was based only on existing rent & historical business demand for space

• Who pays for space often doesn’t accurately depict who’s actually using it

• High level view of space usage provided limited visibility to TRUE occupancy

We Can Do So Much More With This

Occupied Desk Vacant DeskRetail Banking

Team Names

Detailed view of teams using each space….

We Can Do So Much More With This

Occupied Desk Vacant DeskRetail Banking

Team Names

Showing which desks are occupied…

We Can Do So Much More With This

Occupied Desk Vacant DeskRetail Banking

Team Names

… and layers of information about teams

And With Visibility to Individual Seating

No more duplication or “hiding“ space

And With Visibility to Individual Seating

No more duplication or “hiding“ space

Enables decision making

And With Visibility to Individual Seating

No more duplication or “hiding“ space

Enables decision making

Everyone can easily locate people & teams

CLARITY ABOUT OCCUPANCY IS HELPING US:• Provide better support to our teams

Occupancy Planning is a Key Enabler

CLARITY ABOUT OCCUPANCY IS HELPING US:• Provide better support to our teams

• More efficiently manage our space

Occupancy Planning is a Key Enabler

CLARITY ABOUT OCCUPANCY IS HELPING US:• Provide better support to our teams

• More efficiently manage our space

• Highlight & minimize “hogging” behaviour

Occupancy Planning is a Key Enabler

CLARITY ABOUT OCCUPANCY IS HELPING US:• Provide better support to our teams

• More efficiently manage our space

• Highlight & minimize “hogging” behaviour

• Avoid long-term rent increases (and eventually decrease rent)

Occupancy Planning is a Key Enabler

CLARITY ABOUT OCCUPANCY IS HELPING US:• Provide better support to our teams

• More efficiently manage our space

• Highlight & minimize “hogging” behaviour

• Avoid long-term rent increases (and eventually decrease rent)

• Make better long-term planning decisions

Occupancy Planning is a Key Enabler

The Right Occupancy Planning Tool

gives you clarity about what you have and the ability to make better decisions

Consolidate space?

Move to new space?

HOW CAN WE REDUCE CRE COSTS?

Renew leases?

Agile work environment?

BMO’s Choice was Serraview

Click to download the full report.

• Focus on occupancy management and planning

• LOB ownership and accountability

• Transparency for both Real Estate and LOBs

• Intuitive, easy to use

• Quick deployment period

• Superb customer service

• Modular (so we could implement in stages)

Why BMO’s Workplace Team Chose Serraview

Shared Benefits for Other Departments

Business units can easily find people and other teams

Everyone gains an accurate book of record for occupancy

Serraview’s Story:

• 10 years ago, Serraview founders were asked by NAB (National Australia Bank) to build a tool to automate management of new space, help make better decisions & support cultural change

• All major banks in Australia & most government agencies have been using Serraviewfor a decade

• Expanded into North America 2 years ago

• Now supporting BOM, top 2 US banks & top global technology firms

• Recently named FM Software Company of the Year by Frost & Sullivan Australia

Want to See Serraview’s Occupancy Planning Tool in Action?

Watch the quick video on the next slide to see how BMO uses Serraview's tool to manage space:

HERE’S WHERE THE MAGIC HAPPENS

Serraview’s “What If?” Scenario Planning

Watch the quick video on the next slide to see how Serraview'stool makes scenario planning easy:

BMO IS ONE YEAR IN…

Groups Can No Longer Hide Space

Increased Clarity for LOBs

We now have Dynamic Data

Enhanced Metrics

… And Already Seeing Results

A YEAR AGO: • We knew we had vacancy but could not prove it to LOBs

• Were forced to keep adding space & cost to meet demand

Serraview Helped Change Discussions with LOBs

TODAY: • Valid occupancy data means everyone can see what

space is available and where• We can restack a floor to consolidate available space

for another team• We can avoid adding footprint & cost unnecessarily

Serraview Helped Change Discussions with LOBs

• BMO’s executive team recently requested extra seats.

• Instead of leasing new space, the property team were able to show they already had enough vacancy within their own footprint.

• A simple restack of the floor allowed us to free up 20 contagious seats, preventing the need to find extra space or lease another floor (yielding an estimated $200,000 to $900,000 per year in savings).

One Success Story

Lessons Learned

A focused approach was the right choice for BMOWe achieved faster results by focusing on occupancy planning, rather

than trying to take on too many issues at once.

Lessons Learned

Cleaning up our own dataImplementing Serraview helped us create a reliable source of

data, not just for occupancy, but even org chart and enterprise

directory information.

Lessons Learned

Training stakeholdersIdentifying & training LOB stakeholders put the onus on the users to

own their data & process.

TIP: Encouraging teams to include occupancy data updates in their onboarding and offboarding processes keeps data current.

Lessons Learned

Catalyst for changeImplementing Serraview showed us where we needed to revise

processes that weren't working and implement new processes.

THE JOURNEY CONTINUES

BMO’s Plans for 2016 and Beyond

Further enhancing the data and our processes

Relocation management (link to website)

Utilization analysis: sensor technology and wayfinding (link to blog)

US expansion & retail sites in US

Do a reverse feed into the HR system tocapture names to seats

Learn more about collecting utilization data with this free guide to Measuring Workplace Utilization

Find Out What Serraview Can Do For Your Occupancy Planning:

SIGN UP FOR A SERRAVIEW DEMO

READ SERRAVIEW’S BLOG

This content was originally presented at the WORKTECH 15 Conference, December 8, 2015 in Toronto.

WATCH THE FULL VIDEO

Nada FarahSr. Manager,

Workplace Strategy BMO, Toronto

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About This Presentation

Ian MorleyCofounder &

Chief Evangelist Serraview, New York Connect on LinkedIn