What e‐commerce may mean for design of corporate real estate

Significant changes in business practice mean that the design of the physical working environment is now being used to add value to business performance. Businesses, stimulated by the potential of information technology and goaded by international competition, are seeing corporate real estate as more than a matter of simply accommodating themselves in the most efficient way. They are using building projects to add value to their core activities. They are using the design process to accelerate programmes of technological and cultural change. Three case studies are used to illustrate the new importance of design. The strategic implication of these experiences are that users, at all levels in business life, having become accustomed to radical changes in the design process, and increasingly used to the responsiveness of ecommerce, are likely to become increasingly impatient with old economy versions of office design, construction, and real estate practice.