In commercial real estate, the main product is service and sometimes it is hard to tell one company from another.  For these firms and their supply chains, differentiation based on quality of service is essential and impacts the bottom line.  That is why developing reliable business relationships that are more like collaborative partnerships is also so critical.

“Leverage works until it doesn’t,” said Michael Litt during his Saturday keynote at the shiny new Fairmont Hotel in Austin to the 400+ remaining SIOR attendees at the society’s Spring World Conference. While Litt said that in reference to the 1998 collapse of hedge fund Long Term Capital Management, he might as well have used that as the title for his speech.

Most people have little idea what blockchain even is as it relates to cryptocurrency. Now that the same technology behind virtual currency is being adapted for use in many other industries, firms in the CRE sector are bracing for its impact.

Bryce Custer, SIOR, CCIM, MRICS and Managing Director of NAI Ohio River Corridor announced the establishment of a new commercial real estate services firm focused on serving the site selection and commercial real estate requirements associated with the emerging petrochemical and energy services industries in West Virginia, Southwestern Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio.

Perhaps, the grocery anchor is more relevant now than ever. Every mall smattered across the U.S. is anchored by one big name store that is expected to be the biggest draw – the other stores are there to sop up the traffic going to the anchor. Retailers are attracted to new mall developments based on how strong a draw they think the anchor will be.

Last year, e-commerce brought in close to a half a trillion dollars, growing by over 10% from year-to-year. In order to meet that demand and the projected 10% increase over this year, retailers will need to acquire at least 50 million more square feet of industrial warehouse space.

In a study by Harvard Business Review about the revolution of big data as a management tool, it was found that artificial intelligence used to analyze and apply data to decision making by those at the top of the CRE industry saw an increase of up to 6% in productivity compared to their competitors.

In February, reports from CNBC surfaced that Uber was making moves to prepare for an IPO next year. Lyft, Uber’s main competitor in the U.S. is also laying the groundwork necessary for going public attracting $1 billion from Google’s parent company. At first blush, this news may not seem relevant to CRE, but its impact could be felt in three important ways.

Though Excel has become standard for spreadsheet data tracking across the business and academic world, it has had some shortcomings. For one, Excel for business is expensive, especially when you consider some of the more advanced options now that are free or cost less than $10 per month.

Winn-Dixie is getting a lot of press, but Albertson’s Grocery stores appears to be poised to buy up the stalwart Rite Aid as reported by the WSJ. E-commerce alone is not the reason for these bankruptcies but it has pushed brick-and-mortar to revamp or get out. Here are 5 ways that brick-and-mortar is pushing back in order to survive the e-commerce onslaught:

When employees at Google were asked to rank their favorite things about working there, the games and perks weren’t the biggest lures. It’s the high wages that Google employees earn, averaging nearly three times the national median wage at $140K per year. It’s providing three free gourmet meals a day for employees. It is weeks of vacation time and company trips and holiday parties that are out of this world.