CBRE is a leading global provider of facilities maintenance and support services in the built environment, working in partnership with some of the world’s best-known companies including Amazon, Google, Exxon and GE in addition to managing famous landmark sites such as The Gherkin and The Tower of London. CBRE provides its clients with the most comprehensive range of services: Hard Services covering all building maintenance requirements including heating, plumbing, lighting and general maintenance, as well as Soft Services such as catering, cleaning, landscaping and waste management.
To provide this wide range of services - often at short notice - to prestigious clients across multiple sites on a 24-7-365 basis, demands exceptional organisational control. When CBRE’s internal structure is superimposed – with hundreds of client locations and individual hiring managers – then the logistical and recruitment process challenges are further complicated. In 2020 Fortune named CBRE the Most Admired real estate company for the second year in a row. The extensive use of agency workers is a fundamental feature of CBRE’s solution to the challenge of providing a very wide range of skilled workers at short notice for short- term assignments.
The Background
Over the years, CBRE managed their agency relationships in various ways, initially engaging directly with a number of agencies to provide the contractors and agency workers they needed, but as the complexity of the service provision increased CBRE appointed a subsidiary of a major national recruitment company to manage these relationships for them on a ‘Master Vendor’ basis. Unfortunately, the agency underestimated the volume of work and the administrative load associated with CBRE’s business and, as supplier panel dissatisfaction increased and service problems escalated, relationships deteriorated until finally CBRE and the agency agreed to part company in 2010.
CBRE invited selected organisations to formally tender for their business and Datum proposed a completely different ‘Neutral Vendor’ solution to provide the structure, impartiality and transparency needed to repair the strained relationships and restore the service and quality levels CBRE demanded. Late in 2010, Datum was awarded an initial 3-year contract to provide the tendered services; upon it’s expiry this contract was renewed for a further 4 years, and then again upon its expiry Datum was awarded a further renewal for a further 5-year contract term to October 2023.
Additionally, since original award in 2010, CBRE’s business has grown significantly both organically and through acquisition to a 2019 Global revenue of £23.9bn, the scope of the Datum agreement in the UK has expanded accordingly
The Solution
The major elements of the Datum solution provided to CBRE are -
- Total visibility and control of costs
- Improved performance
- Cost Savings opportunities
- Authority and control where it is required
- Complete assured compliance – every agency, every temporary worker.
- AWR and IR35 Legislative control
- Significant Cost Reductions
- Improved brand management
- Host a Partnership support webpage www.datumrpo.com/CBRE
Datum are delivering 100% of CBRE’s temporary labour requirements, which is currently between 400–500 workers at any one time, across c400 client locations and c500 hiring managers, whilst managing 40 partner agency suppliers
The Result
The situation within CBRE’s business has been transformed since Datum were initially awarded the contract in 2010: client and supplier relationships have been dramatically improved, communication is open and constructive, and new initiatives have taken hold which have streamlined process, improved compliance and cost control. Datum continue to work strategically with senior stakeholders across all core CBRE functions to ensure service exceeds expectations and to look for continual improvement in all areas of our business relationship and solution offering.
The following comment from CBRE speaks for itself:
“Following a competitive tender process Datum was chosen to manage our Temporary Labour recruitment. The tender process was extremely quick and didn't give the tenderers much time; however, I was impressed by how quickly Datum grasped our needs and issues and came up with a different solution. They were competitive commercially but I awarded them the contract mostly because they stood out from the rest in other ways. One aspect particularly which stood them apart was the quality of their response: their document was written in plain English and was succinct, direct and to the point without being clouded by marketing and sales speak. This approach has, as I hoped, translated into how they do business. They operate professionally, with pragmatism and honesty and work hard to get the job done. It’s refreshing to deal with real people that simply want to do a good job.
They have already turned our problematic contract around and all the noise from staff and agencies about previous issues has gone away.”
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