New business practices and the corporate property portfolio: how responsive is the UK property market?

It has been asserted that business reorganization and new working practices are transforming the nature of demand for business space. Downsizing, delayering, business process reengineering and associated initiatives alter the amount, type and location of space required by firms. It also has implications for the contractual arrangements. Drawing from UK research, the paper demonstrates that, although new working practices are widespread, their current impact on the corporate property portfolio is muted. However, these changes have altered the way corporate property managers think about their portfolios with a clearer view of the divide between their core and peripheral property requirements. The inflexibility in UK market structures are felt to constrain the supply of a diversity of space required to meet the breadth of occupier requirements. Nevertheless there is increasing evidence that change is occurring which may have a profound impact on the market structure in the longer term.