Finance
A lease event forces a number whether or not you have one
The date is fixed years in advance and the decision is not. Organisations that reach the notice period without measured evidence renew by default, which is the most expensive way to decide, because it is a five- or ten-year commitment made to avoid a two-month analysis.
What the case has to contain
Measured use, not headcount
The board's first question is how you know. A utilisation study with a named method answers it; a headcount divided by a ratio does not.
The peak under the policy you intend to keep
Consolidating to average demand guarantees a space problem on the busiest day, which is the day the decision gets remembered.
The cost of the building you keep
Consolidation almost always means reconfiguring the remaining space. A case that counts the rent saved but not the fit-out spent will not survive its second review.
What you lose, stated plainly
Every consolidation costs something: a location, a commute, a team adjacency. Naming it in the paper is what makes the rest of the paper credible.
Start earlier than feels necessary
A representative measurement study needs several weeks of measurement across a normal range of days, plus analysis, plus the space programme that follows from it. Working back from a notice date, that means beginning roughly nine to twelve months out.
Organisations that start at six months usually end up renewing on a short extension, which is the outcome the analysis was meant to avoid.
Get the lease-decision timeline
The countdown from twelve months out to the notice date, one line per step with a column for who owns it, plus the four things the case has to contain. Dated, so you can work backwards from your own notice date.
Questions we get asked
How long does it take?
It depends on the buildings, the method and how many people take part, so what we will not do is publish an average implementation time. What we can say is the shape: scoping in weeks rather than months; an occupancy round runs over a defined measurement period agreed up front; Dynamics closes when the response window closes. We commit to dates in the proposal, per project, and we would rather be held to those than to an average.
How does an engagement start?
With the decision you are trying to make, not with a product. We work back from that to what has to be measured, who has to agree, which data already exists and what scope is realistic.
What comes out is a recommendation, which is sometimes smaller than the enquiry.
What do we need to have ready?
Usually: who owns the decision, the question in one sentence, the buildings or teams in scope, floor plans or a space inventory, whatever workplace data already exists, a plan for telling employees what is happening, and agreement on who is responsible for what under GDPR.
We confirm the list per project before anything starts.