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organization; it included all stakeholders that intersected What are your highest priority technology initiatives
both the digital and physical. Gaining buy-in required time in the next 12 months and what are the drivers behind
to educate, spread awareness, and ensure involvement those initiatives?
from teams across the organization both functionally Over the next 12 months, I am focusing the organization
and geographically, so that our strategy would resonate on delivering value around four main objectives: produc-
throughout. We also made the conscious decision to tivity, smart buildings, workplace, and mobility. We have
select a blend of quick wins and foundational initiatives multiple projects in flight to deliver mobility and collabo-
to launch in tandem. This allowed us to continue to put ration benefits to our organization. Streamlining our pro-
wins on the board and gain momentum while we were cesses, reducing barriers to collaboration, and ensuring
progressing longer-term initiatives. our teams have mobile enabled platforms to support their
respective work requirements are paramount.
One item in particular was the development of a new
in-house conference room booking solution, which is now One area is around work order management and the abil-
in use at our Houston Campus. E&PS had a clear idea of ity to support operations and maintenance staffs globally
what we wanted from a reservation system and developed to perform their tasks on the go. It requires a mobile solu-
it in a way that brought the most value to the organization. tion that is device agnostic, but more importantly, that
ExxonMobil’s in-house reservation system replaced the it is easy to use. After evaluating alternatives available
arbitrary room selection method of employees with an in the marketplace and determining none were perfectly
automated, algorithm-optimized one. The system lever- suited for our needs, we decided to build our own solution
aged technology to optimize the scheduling process and in-house, giving us the ability to customize workflows and
ensure that each meeting took place in a room that was terminology, and build the user experience around how
we operate.

We have seen fantastic hard and soft benefits from these
projects. Additionally, we are executing a smart building
strategy, so we can leverage the benefits around oper-
ational efficiency, energy savings, and client satisfac-
tion. This strategy is a comprehensive evaluation of our
current and future portfolio leveraging a persona based
approach. It enabled the development of a digital offer-
ings playbook based on site persona and digital readi-
ness. The playbook presented a portfolio-based approach
leveraging rationalization and standardization on neces-
sary digital capabilities required at each location. This
supports smarter decision making and ensures we are
fully leveraging digital for our business strategy.

What technology/innovation trends will have the
most impact on corporate real estate over the next
three years?
able to accommodate the needs of that meeting, removing For me personally, the most interesting technolo gies on
personal preferences from the process. The system pro- the horizon are artificial intelligence and machine learn-
vided utilization data that it could use to plan future meet- ing. There is still a lot of hype around this space, and
ing room space, including the number of rooms by type discrete, cost effective actionable use-cases are a rarity;
and size, technologies to include in each, and the appropri- however the potential is transformational. Imagine a time
ate ratio of meeting spaces to employees. The high utiliza- when a building completely operates itself, from day-
tion also suggested that employees were able to use the to-day adjustments in HVAC to parts requisition for a
rooms in a way that added value to their work, instead of component that is approaching failure, all automatically.
settling for a random available space. The utilization data This will require a shift in how companies staff and man-
collected by the system gave E&PS the information they age corporate real estate groups as the skills required to
needed to make better design decisions and build strate- maintain these models is not something most companies
gies for future workplace development. have on hand. n

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