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REAL ESTATE SERVICES OUTSOURCING IN THE FASHION RETAIL INDUSTRY: _A PERFORMANCE PERSPECTIVE

Research Outline

The strategic management concepts of Core Competencies, Outsourcing and Benchmarking have been subject to numerous discussions in the academic and corporate world before the turn of the foregone century. Now, in the third Millennium, many corporate real estate managers have taken on board results from these discussions and implemented accordingly altered strategies in the quest to optimise their processes and resources to improve bottom line performance.

In the high-end fashion retail industry the consideration to concentrate on the primary revenue generating resources and competencies accompanied by the understanding that Merchandising and Point of Sale strategies go beyond the geographic location of an outlet, and the acceptance of the need to strategically manage real estate assets to enhance their contribution to corporate performance led many organisations to restructure their real estate functions accordingly and develop the strategic management thereof. On the same token a number of retailers with a view to achieving best practices chose to outsource all or parts of their corporate real estate management function to external experts, backed by the results of forgone internal and external benchmarking activities. However, true performance enhancement are not simply achieved through cost-cutting measures, but through the strategic management of value generating activities. But ...

Research Problem:

...in order to enable the strategic management of real estate outsourcing relationships suitable performance measures need to be defined and performance influencing corporate variables determined.

Theoretical Framework:

Research Population:

High-end designer brand fashion retailers of European origin operating outlets in Autralia, the UK and Germany.

Research Questions:

1. How does corporate strategy, structure and co-ordination influence the organisation of the real estate management function of high-end fashion retailers operating stores in Australia, the UK and in Germany?
2. How does corporate strategy, structure and co-ordination affect the extent of outsourcing activity and outsourcing relationship management?
3. How does the extent of outsourcing activity and the management of outsourcing relationships impact the performance of these relationships and the results achieved by the real estate function?

Research Mission:

It is this research's mission to determine the interdependencies between corporate variables and outsourcing behaviour and performance in order to enable a European fashion retailers to strategically manage their real estate services outsourcing relationships in Australia, the UK and Germany.

Research Objectives:

• To determine how the corporate strategy of high-end fashion retailers affects their real estate strategy.
• To explore how corporate structure and co-ordination impact outsourcing behaviour among retailers.
• To unveil the correlation between the extent of outsourcing activity and outsourcing performance.
• To analyse how the management of outsourced real estate functions effects the performance thereof.
• To define performance measures allowing a comparison of internally and externally performed tasks.

Research Justification:

The combination of real estate research and corporate strategy research mixed with the focus on high-end fashion retailers is highly uncommon in current literature. (please click the link to see a list of Secondary Sources Consulted to date)

This, together with the practical implication of this research - due to the strategy performance oriented perspective taken - justifies this undertaking.

Academics, real estate experts and retailers vigorously confirmed the viability of this research during 'topic- and hypothesis testing' interviews.

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