Key success factors and how Davos enables business

Christian Ulbrich
Chief Executive Officer, EMEA
Jones Lang LaSalle

Technology meets real estate

After writing yesterday’s blog, I set out to participate in a Technology Industry dinner to learn more about where that industry is heading.  Besides being a largely US-dominated group, there were only three participants from other industries, one from infrastructure, one from shipping and myself.  I sat at a table of eight, at which three out of the other seven confirmed that we are dealing with their real estate in the US.  That is the type of market share which makes you proud.  They all gave a glimpse of the areas in which they see new technology being game changing in the next decade.  Smart and sustainable buildings played a prominent role in their predictions and it became very clear to me how important it will be for us to connect our facility management much better with our capabilities in sustainability services.

Real estate meets media

I closed yesterday by joining one of the major media events.  The first person I ran into was the CEO of a US fertilizer company.  He uses Jones Lang LaSalle and his son wants to get into the real estate business… what a coincidence.  I managed to move on without making any promises.

Unhealthy but enlightening start into Thursday

It felt like minus 20°C when I rushed very early and with immediately frozen hair to join a so called breakfast (no time for food) where I listened to a recent survey about the most successful companies in Europe.  They came up with four key success factors as the main differentiators between the most successful and the others:

1. Embedding the global mega trends into your core business, e.g. making money on sustainability.
2. Targeted M&A activity to accelerate defined strategies into actual business.
3.  Constantly adapting to your changing consumer or client base, e.g. if a bigger part of the population is ageing it will influence your approach
4. Operational efficiency, e.g. once you have finished one initiative to drive efficiency – don’t sit back, start the next one
 
Davos enables business

The rest of the day was packed with one-on-ones with clients or potential clients.  That was the first time when I properly felt that famous spirit of Davos.  You sit in one of the completely overcrowded lounges for your meeting and at the same table people come and go, some of them you know from the pictures in the press, others are complete strangers.  You can easily make contact, exchange business cards and agree a follow-up.  If I had to run a statistic for today, it would be our services in India which were of most interest, but no worry to my fellow EMEA colleagues, as you know it is not always about the quantity.

-Christian Ulbrich

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Categories: World Economic Forum 2011