Information strategy in view of enterprise real estate futures : The evolving role of information systems in corporate real estate and facility management

Abstract

In just a few days in March 2020, the planned evolution of the workplace became a radical revolution, quickly uncovering which organisations were prepared to cope with the fast-changing circumstances within their workplace concepts, including IT and facility management (FM), and which were not. This paper explores five key workplace developments and three key technology developments that will affect workplace and real estate strategy this decade and their influence on information strategy and the role of information systems. Together these workplace developments will shape the future of the workplace into a distributed, carbon-neutral and resilient workplace while these technology developments will shape an updated workplace information strategy and related systems to enable workplace digitisation, mobility and resilience. FM experienced accelerated change around the workplace and is now on a fast path to adopting mobile, digitisation and resilience principles. In view of these developments, information strategy should be prepared to drive these changes, not only to support the development of the organisation into a distributed and carbon-neutral workplace today, but also to prepare workplace resilience for future disruptions. Embracing diversity and managing complexity via an open platform approach is expected to be key in an information strategy that supports this future of the workplace.