Corporate industry developing universal set of standards.

When negotiating a lease in New York, and one in Los Angeles, corporate tenants often find that different standards apply. Are common areas included in the square footage? And what about elevator shafts and roof overhangs? How is the building measured? The end result is that the same amount of space may be calculated differently, resulting in dramatically different rental amounts.

This small example points to the larger problem: the industry of Corporate Real Estate lacks a common vocabulary. "Without a common vocabulary, its difficult for us to develop a universal way for our industry to interact, be it the web or even in person.

The real estate industry needs a set of universal standards that will allow all players, tenants and landlords, architects and builders, space planners and clients, to communicate and negotiate." says Keith Perske, manager of business systems for Sun Microsystems' corporate real estate department.

For this reason, several prominent corporate real estate industry leaders and professional associations have come together to form OSCRE, the Open Standards Consortium for Real Estate. The goal for OSCRE is to facilitate a greater level of coordination, standardization and collaboration across the key stakeholders in the real estate industry.

"Currently real estate organizations have different work processes and use different vocabularies so that any technology tool developed for one organization isn't easily deployed at another," says Dave Clute, Manager, Global Operations for Workplace Resources at Cisco Systems.

"There is very little integration at this point. OSCRE is the solution because rather than ask companies to adopt new processes, we are just asking them to adopt the same language and use it in any process they choose."

"We, as an industry, need to agree on the meaning of the words we use," says Perske, "and then translate that into open technical standards so our industry can take full advantage of the efficiencies of the inter-networked economy. This is OSCRE's ultimate goal."

OSCRE will serve as the focal point for the development, synthesis, and adoption of e-business standards that enable the real estate industry to function effectively and efficiently. The OSCRE consortium is positioned to serve the real estate industry in the same way that COVISANT unifies auto industry standards and SABRE has served airline industry transactions.

OSCRE began as a cutting edge initiative in CoreNet Global, the world's leading professional association for corporate real estate executives, and now, due to the increased interest from a variety of industry standard groups, leading corporate real estate-related associations and high-profile companies, has developed into an independent, cross-industry collaborative effort.

OSCRE has also been working closely with, and been influenced by the U.K.-based PISCES and the U.S.-based Data Consortium. "PISCES has been able to deploy several sets of standards in the UK that are now being used by large sectors of the real estate industry, including backing from key government agencies," says Chris Lees, CEO of Calvis and former Chairman of PISCES. "Our aligning with OSCRE will help leverage this effort internationally."

"We have active participation by over 80 companies in the US," says Ian Cameron of the consulting practice, iCameron.net.

"And we are also in discussions with other key players in our industry like NACREIF, the Urban Land Institute, the International Facilities Managers Association and the American Institute of Architects."

OSCRE will deliver its first set of standards in 2004 focused around transactions and metrics using open xml standards.

"The more we can keep our technical standards open and platform agnostic, the more agile we can remain and that's an advantage for all players in the real estate industry," Perske says.