A recent trend in the office is the increase in requests for measured surveys from retailers who are opening stores on the Continent. Although the physical process of surveying and drawing is the same, the geographic spread can bring with it a number of challenges; inefficient planning can dramatically affect your cost base.

However, nothing is insurmountable and you can avert a number of potential issues by following our top 5 tips for success:

1.    Give your survey supplier as much warning as possible.
Flights and hotels are a major part of the overall fee and you can achieve significant savings on a programme when these are booked in advance.

2.    Allocate site surveys in batches wherever possible
Grouping by country is one way of planning, but you will achieve greater efficiency if a survey team can hit the South of France and Northern Italy in one go, whilst another team deals with Southern Italy and Greece for example. Applications like Microsoft AutoRoute can really help to cut down on travel time – it’s all about proximity!

3.    Work with your survey supplier and let them know the bigger picture.
Negotiations are always a complex process, but if you are 90% sure you will be taking a lease on the Continent, it can often work out cheaper in the long run to have it surveyed whilst the team are in the area; rather than paying for a dedicated visit later.

4.    Ensure that all the agents and store managers know that the survey team is coming.
European retail survey programmes are planned as time-efficiently as possible, waiting times do escalate if an access issue can’t quickly be resolved.

5.    Be flexible on the drawing return date.
Wherever possible, we try to draw up surveys in the evenings when surveying in Europe. However, where there are a lot of surveys to get through, or where the site is very large, it is invariably more cost-effective to draw up surveys back in the UK than in a hotel.

Obviously it’s not always about cost, but we believe it is important that our clients don’t pay any more than they need to, so if you are considering expansion into Europe and want to use a survey company you can trust, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Ross

High street banks suffer the same space management issues as any other retailer, however brands in this sector usually have a branch in every town centre. The cost-impact of poor quality data not only makes informed decision-making difficult across the estate, but also reduces the likelihood of maintaining branch consistency in terms of space design and space management.

Over the past 20 years, the retail banking sector has undergone a huge change with smaller banks being swept up by the larger groups, ensuing the demise of branches branded as Midland Bank, Abbey National and TSB. As a result, programmes of rapid refit and refurbishment were untaken as quickly as possible to rebrand old units. Several years on and the importance of quality data has never been more important.

To put this in perspective, Lloyds Bank have around 1,800 branches in the UK, whereas popular fashion retailer, Primark has about 160. In addition every customer visit is a potential sale or at least an opportunity for engagement with a client. Hence, the cost of ordering the wrong amount of POS, of not understanding the fixtures you have, or of leasing premises that are not fit for purpose could be substantial.

 What can space management teams within the banking sector do?

Being able to query quality data about your estate is crucial in helping you to make the right decisions; for example:

• How many branches have more than 4 cashiers and more than 3,000 sq ft circulation space?
• How many branches have less than 2 external cash points and less than 2 merchandisable windows?
• Which branches have the 2002 consultation desk and how many of them are across the estate?
• How many branches have more than 60% total floor space dedicated to back-office functions?

Although the answers to such questions don’t offer solutions in themselves, they can help a bank’s property team to identify branches that are either outdated, using space inefficiently, or that have outdated fixtures; prioritising spending and portfolio disposals.

How could a bank achieve this level of intelligence?

The first step is to get a clear picture of the estate as it stands today. This could be via an audit - if CAD plans already exist – or via the creation of new survey data. Then, once an up to date CAD plan is available for each branch, they can be populated with intelligent blocks for each fixture type, and the different spaces tagged with their core business function.

Once the plans are synchronised with a secure online database, accurate reports can be created from anywhere in the world. These may be exported to an Excel format for other departments to use, and PDF versions of plans can be downloaded for marking-up on-site using an iPad – helping banks to share more accurate information, more easily.

Here at CADS, our business is to help any retailer to make the most of its estate. Our range of tools can help high street banks to achieve all the points outlined above. So, if you think the above sounds interesting, please get in touch.

rcooper@cadesignservices.co.uk

The Land Registration Act of 2002 set out new requirements on how title and lease plans should be presented and what information they should contain. In fact, you can buy a compliant survey on the internet for as little as £100.

My question is  does this really represent good value to the owner of a commercial property? An individual or business  may require a number of different surveys to be undertaken during the lifecycle of the building, and like many things surveys are too often purchased on price and not value.

To answer this question you need to understand the value of the information that can be gained by commissioning an accurate survey at an early stage. You also need to consider the usefulness of your survey for the lifecycle of the building, not just for a single purpose such as conveyancing.

Preparing an accurate representation of the building, the land it sits on and it’s context,  may cost more than purchasing a lease plan from the internet, but by doing so you are actually creating a permanent digital record. This record can be added to and used again and again, saving you money over the longer term.

By creating an accurate digital drawing file you are also creating a central repository for storing vital information about the building. This can used by solicitors, tenants, facilities management, energy assessors, building surveyors, letting agents, architects, health and safety advisors and maintenance engineers. Surely this represents good value?
Mark

National Accounts Manager

mjohnson@cadesignservices.co.uk