What is real estate? Fundamentally it’s buildings and space and an address. More metaphysically though it’s the space that supports a business. It’s the gas in the motor so to speak.
There aren’t a ton of real estate people (on the services side) that come from operations. Most have always been in real estate or have a finance background. You don’t find many people who ran transportation or managed an office or business. Yet these are the people that you’re bringing to the table to help you make a decision that will fundamentally impact the way you operate for the next 15 years (even if your lease term is less than that, the impact of the decision will last longer).
Real estate decisions impact corporate culture, employee satisfaction, customer delivery, operating costs, ability to recruit and hire, ability to support existing business processes and a whole slew of others. Why is this being supported by people who understand markets and cost? Seems like there’s a large majority of the pie that isn’t being covered.