Case Study: CA

CA’s global facilities team delivered 15 percent savings in occupancy costs by decreasing real estate footprint and eliminating excess vacancy

Industry: IT Management Software
Facilities:182 active sites including:NA, EMEA, LA, and APJ; 6.7 million sq.ft. with 14,500 occupants
FM: Systems Solutions: FM:Interact
Client Since: 1999

"Technology has played an important role in helping us deliver on the initiatives in CA’s strategic facilities plan. Better information has helped us drive cost savings from corporate real estate but has also helped us improve service to our internal customers.”
Robert Paul
Vice President of America's Facilities
CA

Background
Founded in 1976, CA is a global company with headquarters in Islandia, NY, serving customers in more than 140 countries. The company serves the majority of Fortune 1000® companies, as well as government entities, educational institutions and thousands of other companies in diverse industries worldwide.

Facilities and Property Overview
CA manages approximately 6.7 million square feet of owned and leased space; the 182 sites house more than 14,500 employees and contractors worldwide.  
           

CA’s Plan for Change
In 2005, CA’s global facilities team launched an ambitious strategic plan to help the business reduce operating expenses and support an increasingly dynamic workforce. Savings would be realized by reducing under-utilized space and ultimately the company’s worldwide real estate footprint.  Better support for internal customers would be driven by streamlined processes for managing churn and facilities services.

Elements of the strategic plan included placing increased emphasis on telecommuting and workforce mobility, implementing consistent space standards and expanding chargeback policies for space, capital expenses and facilities services.

Christopher Duggan, service delivery supervisor of facilities, quickly realized that CA would need better facilities data to put into practice the business processes and policies developed for this initiative. He planned to move from fragmented, departmental use of technology to a single, enterprise-wide system. This would allow CA to better track and manage occupancy across its multiple geographies and business units.

Duggan began to evaluate products to centralize and connect CA’s multiple sources of workplace information and provide a higher level of visibility across the global software company.

Putting the Plan Into Action
Since 1999, CA had used technology on a site-by-site basis to manage space and occupancy for key locations in North America. While the stand-alone systems had improved management of those specific sites, Duggan knew that, because of the limited access and multiple databases, he would have difficulty providing visibility into utilization across the entire organization.

Gaining control and increasing visibility into how existing space was being utilized became a key driving factor. For example, tactics for driving down occupancy costs included application of space standards and more accurate space chargebacks.

In the past, space per occupant was inconsistent and departments had been charged the same for cubicle space and executive office space. CA’s new policies would decrease the square footage per person from 330 square feet to 290 square feet and would allow the company to appropriately charge departments for the type of space utilized.

Again, data accuracy was key. “Chargebacks have been a great way to get my internal customers to appreciate the financial impact of facilities and related services. On the other hand, people naturally defend their budgets. If you show department heads a chargeback report with inaccurate data, they’ll eat you alive,” notes Duggan. “If you plan to charge departments for space or services, you need to make sure you can produce accurate, detailed information to support your costs."   

Duggan wanted to ensure his company had the right software to support the global initiative, so he evaluated leading facility management products on the market.  His criteria included:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

• Configurability to align the technology with CA’s business processes
• Open architecture to integrate with other enterprise applications
• Usability to drive end-user adoption
• Capabilities to improve processes such as onboarding, moves and termination
• Proven implementation process and superior customer support                                                                                                                                                                  

After researching a wide range of products, Duggan felt that the FM:Interact Workplace Management Suite from FM:Systems provided the right combination of flexibility and openness. Duggan added, “FM:Systems support and consulting teams were very responsive to our needs. After comparing the configurability of FM:Interact to other products, it was an easy decision to leverage their technology to roll out the system globally.”

CA chose a phased approach to implementing the system – beginning with North America and then expanding to other geographies. The North American implementation of FM:Interact started in the spring of 2006 and roll out began in the spring of 2007. CA has worked closely with AMS CAFM Solutions, an FM:Systems Certified Business Partner. According to Duggan, “CA has specific policies and business processes that required products that were flexible.  We needed a consulting partner that could help CA leverage that flexibility to help us continually refine and improve our data and processes.”

AMS has extended the base capabilities of FM:Interact’s space and move management capabilities for CA and assisted with the integration of the product with other information systems. Dan Lorenz of AMS notes, “The configurability of the products reduces the time and complexity to automate business processes. This lets AMS focus on helping CA address business issues and deliver better results.”

Delivering on the Plan
In 2007, CA started to see the results of its plan take shape.  CA has already experienced a wide range of benefits, including the ability to:     

• Realize Occupancy Cost Savings. By reconfiguring space and consolidating occupancy, facilities have documented 15 percent in savings in North America. These savings were realized by disposing of excess vacancy – terminating leases or subletting the unneeded space.
• Reduce Churn.  With accurate move data, facilities could communicate costs and charge internal customers for move services – helping to reduce their churn rate by 63 percent. 
• Support workforce mobility. With a significant number of employees working from home or managing an extensive travel schedule, space was often left unused for long periods of time. CA is now able to better utilize that space by assigning one cube or office to four mobile workers.
• Improve productivity and performance. Managers are able to make real-time decisions with live data including approving moves automatically.  As a result, time required to process moves has decreased by 30 percent - resulting in greater productivity for facilities teams and reduced disruption to internal customers.
• Increase visibility and improve decision-making. Executive management can quickly view the space and occupancy status including over or under-utilization of buildings. This has helped executives incorporate facilities and related costs into strategic decisions across the enterprise.
• Allow integration with other systems:  Due to the openness of the technology’s architecture, CA has been able to easily integrate with other systems, including SAP for HR and financial data. By integrating information from all other databases, FM:Interact has become the central database for workplace information.  
• Configure the products to meet their needs. The configurability of FM:Interact has enabled CA to make the product fit their specific needs. For example, AMS CAFM Solutions integrated FM:Interact with Google Maps to allow users in each region to directly access floors of each building. It also includes a search capability which will allow employees to search for items such as restaurants near each office.
• Increase user adoption. The product’s usability allows end-users to quickly and easily use the product without the need for additional training.