Consulting services

Transform corporate real estate into a strategic business asset by supporting business transformation and growth, optimizing costs to release working capital, advancing sustainability to meet regulatory and investor expectations, and creating high-quality workplaces that attract and retain talent.

To achieve this transformation, enterprises should focus on four core value drivers that systematically reshape how real estate is managed.

• Enable business transformation and growth: Regularly assess whether the real estate portfolio aligns with evolving business priorities, such as market expansion, business model transformation, or brand repositioning. Strategic real estate planning goes beyond providing physical space—it strengthens the connection between business strategy and real estate, enhances brand engagement with customers, and ensures space supply remains aligned with business growth.
• Optimize costs and unlock working capital: Cost optimization is not simply about reducing occupancy expenses—it is about releasing capital for strategic investment in R&D, talent, and business expansion. By leveraging data-driven portfolio management, such as integrating workplace attendance and building utilization data, organizations can optimize their footprint and significantly reduce fixed costs. For example, JLL helped a global financial institution achieve annual savings of US$120 million, enabling capital to be redirected toward strategic initiatives.
• Advance sustainable operations to meet regulatory and investor expectations: Buildings account for approximately 40% of global carbon emissions. Low-carbon upgrades create value in two ways: they reduce regulatory and compliance risks associated with increasingly stringent sustainability requirements, while also enhancing access to green financing and attracting ESG-focused investors and tenants. Ultimately, sustainable assets are better positioned to preserve and enhance long-term value.
• Create high-quality workplaces to attract and retain talent: The workplace environment directly influences talent attraction, employee retention, and workforce productivity. In today’s competitive labor market, designing workplaces around employee experience—including flexible collaboration spaces and wellness-focused amenities—creates measurable competitive advantages, making real estate a powerful enabler of talent strategy.
  

Data analytics and technology help enterprises move from assumption-based real estate decisions to evidence-based, scenario-driven strategies that can be monitored and refined over time.

• Integrated data foundation: Consulting teams can combine lease data, occupancy data, cost information, headcount forecasts, labor market insights and market intelligence into a single analytical view.
• Scenario-based decision-making: Data-driven models help compare different portfolio, location and workplace options by evaluating their potential impact on cost, employee experience, operational efficiency and long-term flexibility.
• Technology-enabled performance monitoring: Digital tools allow enterprises to track utilization, lease events, portfolio performance and market changes more continuously, supporting more agile real estate decisions.
  

Enterprises should evaluate CRE consulting providers based on the strength of their methodology, data capabilities, team expertise, execution connectivity and proven outcomes.

• Clear methodology: A strong provider should be able to explain how it gathers data, develops insights, compares scenarios and translates recommendations into an actionable roadmap.
• Data and technology capability: The provider should bring market intelligence, portfolio analytics and technology-enabled tools that support more accurate and timely decision-making.
• Cross-disciplinary expertise: Real estate consulting often requires input from workplace strategy, location strategy, portfolio management, project delivery and facilities management specialists.
• Relevant outcomes: Comparable client experience and measurable results help demonstrate whether the provider can deliver practical business impact, not only strategic recommendations.
  

Organizations achieve superior strategic outcomes and faster execution by engaging a single integrated consulting firm rather than assembling multiple specialist advisors—since real estate decisions are interdependent, and fragmented advisory relationships often lead to disjointed recommendations.

• Integration advantage: A single firm operates from shared data, a unified understanding of the client, and consistent analytical methods.
• Execution continuity: When the same firm that develops the strategy can also execute it through leasing, project management, and facilities management, the transition becomes seamless.
• Accountability: A single advisory relationship establishes clear accountability for results.
• When specialists may add value: For narrow-scope needs—such as one-time tax incentive negotiations or jurisdiction-specific regulatory analysis—a specialist may offer deeper expertise. However, the overarching strategic framework should remain with the integrated advisor.
  

An integrated consulting approach ensures that workplace strategy, location decisions and portfolio planning are considered together, so real estate decisions better support business priorities, talent needs and long-term value.

• Start with business and people needs: Consulting begins by understanding business objectives, workforce requirements, collaboration patterns and employee experience goals.
• Translate needs into real estate scenarios: These inputs are then used to evaluate location options, portfolio scenarios and workplace requirements in an integrated way.
• Align strategy with execution: Once the preferred direction is defined, consulting can connect strategy with leasing, project delivery and facilities management to support effective implementation.
  

Occupier consulting insights enhance investment and asset management strategies by delivering critical demand-side intelligence. By analyzing how tenants utilize space, which workplace features they prioritize, and where occupancy trends are evolving, these insights guide decisions on asset positioning, capital allocation, and disposition timing.

• Tenant demand intelligence: Workplace strategy data reveals key occupier preferences, including flexible floorplans, technology-enabled collaboration zones, sustainability certifications, and experience-focused amenities.
• Utilization and occupancy analytics: Portfolio-level data highlights assets that are underperforming relative to their utilization potential, serving as an early warning signal for lease renewal risks.
• Location attractiveness modeling: Advanced location strategy analytics offer investors forward-looking indicators of market appeal, complementing traditional comparable transaction analysis.
• Capital expenditure prioritization: These insights enable investors to direct capital improvements toward features that occupier demand data confirms will yield the highest returns.
  

By integrating market intelligence, occupancy performance, lease risk, capital requirements, and strategic alignment, consultants develop a structured decision-making framework that assesses the future value of each asset and supports informed portfolio decisions.

• Hold analysis: Evaluate lease structures, tenant quality, rental trends, capital expenditure (CapEx), financial performance, and strategic value to determine whether an asset should remain part of the long-term portfolio.
• Repositioning assessment: For aging or functionally obsolete assets with redevelopment potential, quantify investment requirements and expected returns. Assess market demand, planning policies, regulatory requirements, and financial feasibility to determine the viability and ROI of renovation or adaptive reuse.
• Exit assessment: Identify non-core or underperforming assets that no longer align with corporate strategy. Evaluate alternative exit scenarios by considering market conditions, tax implications, capital recovery objectives, and regulatory requirements to determine the optimal divestment strategy and timing.
• JLL’s competitive advantage: JLL combines deep insights into global leasing markets, industrial and urban planning expertise, and a strong understanding of macroeconomic and policy trends. Unlike traditional investment advisors that primarily focus on financial metrics and market transactions, JLL evaluates assets through a broader strategic lens, enabling clients to make more comprehensive and future-oriented portfolio decisions.
  

Commercial real estate consulting engagements are generally structured around four primary fee models: a project-based fixed fee, a monthly retainer, hourly advisory rates, or a hybrid approach that merges fixed and variable elements. Crucially, all consulting compensation is strictly fee-based rather than commission-based, guaranteeing that strategic advice remains impartial and unaffected by transaction volumes.

• Project-based fixed fee: This model applies a set price to a clearly defined scope of work. It is frequently used for workplace strategy assessments, site selection analyses, and portfolio optimization initiatives.
• Monthly retainer: This structure supports an ongoing advisory partnership through a consistent monthly payment. It is ideal for organizations requiring continuous strategic guidance and regular portfolio oversight.
• Hourly advisory: Services are billed according to pre-agreed hourly rates. This approach is well-suited for specific, targeted advice or engagements where the scope may adjust as insights emerge.
• Blended model: This combines fixed and variable costs, such as pairing a base project fee with hourly charges for extra analysis. It is often employed for complex, multi-stage programs.
  
  

Consulting fees account for 1–3% of total occupancy expenses. JLL designs its fee structures to align with client goals, offering transparent proposals that clearly outline the scope, timeline, team makeup, and expected deliverables.

The first 90 days are typically structured in three phases: aligning objectives, building the data foundation, and translating findings into strategic options and an actionable roadmap.

• Phase 1: Discovery and alignment. The consulting team confirms business priorities, stakeholder expectations, decision criteria, available data, project scope and governance approach.
• Phase 2: Baseline analysis. The team reviews portfolio, workplace, cost, utilization and market information to identify key issues, opportunities and constraints.
• Phase 3: Strategic options and roadmap. Initial findings are translated into strategic scenarios, recommended priorities and a practical roadmap for next-stage decision-making or implementation.
  

Yes. Consulting services can be structured in phases, allowing enterprises to begin with the most urgent priorities and expand the scope as value is demonstrated.

• Start with a focused diagnostic: A targeted assessment can identify the most important portfolio, workplace or location opportunities before a larger engagement begins.
• Prioritize the highest-impact workstreams: Enterprises can begin with the areas that are most closely linked to current business needs, such as cost optimization, workplace experience or portfolio planning.
• Scale from pilot to broader rollout: Consulting can first be applied to a priority market, business unit or asset group, then expanded across the wider portfolio once the approach is validated.