Cushman & Wakefield’s chief executive says the agency’s recent venture with co-working giant WeWork will prove a “clear differentiator”, as it pitches for big corporate occupier mandates.
Cushman launched an exclusive strategic partnership with WeWork in August, a deal that included Cushman taking an equity stake in the now-public company.
Discussing the tie-up as Cushman published its third-quarter results this week, chief executive Brett White described the relationship with WeWork as “very, very important” and “very strategic”.
“It is an exclusive venture where we are able to take the amazing technology and the amazing workplace experience tools that WeWork developed… and deliver them to our largest corporate and institutional ownership customers,” White said.
The chief executive noted that the agency’s largest corporate outsourcing clients – “multinationals with dozens, if not hundreds, of locations around the world” – will typically put their agency mandates up for bid every four or five years. “The largest of those transactions are needle-movers for us on profitability,” he added. “They matter a lot.”
The deal with WeWork will now give Cushman an edge on such bids, White said, considering the questions that are “top of list” for corporate occupiers in deciding which firms to hire.
“First is ‘how do you help us get our employees back in the office? What is it that you can bring to us that is real and differentiated knowledge on what people like in the office? How do we make them excited to go back to work?’” he said.
“I think we can all agree that both old WeWork and new WeWork, there was no firm probably better on the planet at figuring that out. So we’re able to bring those experiences and those tools, those products and that knowledge to our clients on an exclusive basis.”
Then comes the technology. “These very large corporate customers are [saying], ‘tell us exactly the analytical tools, the technology tools you have to help us better manage the workplace environment’,” White said. “We now can bring in their technology, their experience, their knowledge, their AI on behalf and to the benefit of our largest corporate customers. This will be a clear differentiator for Cushman & Wakefield among the largest corporate outsourcing bids that we’ll pitch. That ability to pitch these corporate clients in a differentiated way and win more of those big customers was driver number one around this partnership.”
And the relationship could deepen yet. Asked by an equity analyst whether there was scope for Cushman now to win more work from WeWork, such as becoming its preferred leasing agent, White sounded some big ambitions – and a note of realism.
“We would hope that as time goes on and this partnership continues to grow and evolve, certainly we have our aspirations to do all of WeWork’s business,” he said, quickly adding: “Probably will never happen, but we’ll certainly try.”
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