Rosemarie Subasic is a Vice President with Hines, a privately owned, international real estate firm. She is a Procurement Executive with more than 30 years of experience in corporate and government facilities, real estate and operations management. For the past 12 years, she has been responsible for facilities operations for Morgan Stanley, with an annual operating budget of over $150 million dollars. She manages over 70 sourcing activities annually.
Rosemarie will be a featured presenter at the New York City CPO Meet and Eat event on September 12 from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. This event is a three-hour breakfast meeting with CPO-only level delegates. The event topics are focused on current events locally, nationally and globally, and allow CPOs to seek input from the group on their own top-of-mind issues. By keeping this meeting very high level, CPOs are better able to share and network with each other.
Can you talk about your background and education--how did you get involved in facilities management?
I graduated as a marketing major with a business degree in 1985. My first job after college, as an Operations Analyst for the City of New York, involved collecting, reporting and using data related to real estate and facilities operations. From there I went on to manage real estate and support services for the Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) and decided to pursue facilities management as a career.
As corporate cultural battles play out, workplaces have become the battleground, with outcomes increasingly dependent on worker engagement, health, well-being and a sense of belonging or purpose. The following are 14 workplace trends reshaping corporate cultures in 2014 and beyond:
A strategic sourcing approach can accelerate enterprise growth. Deeply knowledgeable on IT issues, procurement leaders offer a sophisticated understanding of how to make IT purchases impactful to the corporate bottom and top lines. The next hill to climb in delivering increasing value to the C-suite may lie in another significant expense category: corporate real estate. Companies outsource facilities management and related services to reduce expenses, and those expectations are met, but they soon learn that real estate strategies can provide even greater value in areas such as employee engagement, worker productivity and risk management. The right real estate partner with the right strategy in place can also help companies optimize balance-sheet and P&L impact, enhance employee attraction and retention, and meet strategic goals in areas ranging from M&A to sustainability. These goals are often the responsibility of internal departments other than real estate, so gaining the benefit requires strong collaboration among internal teams. If this collaborative spirit doesn't already exist at your company, bringing in a third-party real estate partner can help bridge communication gaps and align the goals of different departments to gain mutually beneficial results. Some areas where collaborative initiatives pay the biggest dividends include:
Real estate and facilities may be the most misunderstood corporate function in the world of sourcing. Despite the fact that real estate is one of the largest corporate expenses, senior managers often are only vaguely aware of all the myriad strategies that exist to reduce cost, manage risk and drive productivity. Real estate is a strategic corporate function that affects every aspect of the business, from the C-suite to Finance to HR, and the ability of business units to operate effectively. But often, corporate real estate (CRE) leaders are perceived as the guys who work in the basement and clean the restrooms. This misperception is somewhat dangerous. In a recent survey, more than 70 percent of CRE directors said they face high internal expectations for increasing productivity in the workplace and improving efficiency within their department, but only 28 percent feel "well-equipped" to meet these rising demands from senior leadership. The challenge is intensified by the growing trend of procurement professionals affecting real estate sourcing decisions. More than two-thirds of CRE leaders see procurement taking an active or even leading role in real estate decisions, but only 42 percent believe the procurement function is sufficiently knowledgeable about the facilities function to make informed decisions. The problem lies in the notion that real estate is a commodity service, so the goal of a procurement team is to find the lowest-cost provider. That approach might make some executives look good as cost-cutters, but the damage to the business greatly overshadows any incremental cost savings. Companies that fail to recognize how real estate strategy affects corporate performance will inevitably fall behind their competitors, in terms of their ability to attract and retain talent, maximize profit and mitigate a range of risks.
Interview with Rosemarie Subasic, Vice President, Hines
Rosemarie Subasic is a Vice President with Hines, a privately owned, international real estate firm. She is a Procurement Executive with more than 30 years of experience in corporate and government facilities, real estate and operations management. For the past 12 years, she has been responsible for facilities operations for Morgan Stanley, with an annual operating budget of over $150 million dollars. She manages over 70 sourcing activities annually.
Rosemarie will be a featured presenter at the New York City CPO Meet and Eat event on September 12 from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. This event is a three-hour breakfast meeting with CPO-only level delegates. The event topics are focused on current events locally, nationally and globally, and allow CPOs to seek input from the group on their own top-of-mind issues. By keeping this meeting very high level, CPOs are better able to share and network with each other.
If you’d like to join this CPO Meet and Eat event, register on our website or see what cities we’re headed to next.
Can you talk about your background and education--how did you get involved in facilities management?
I graduated as a marketing major with a business degree in 1985. My first job after college, as an Operations Analyst for the City of New York, involved collecting, reporting and using data related to real estate and facilities operations. From there I went on to manage real estate and support services for the Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) and decided to pursue facilities management as a career.