Three Questions with Brad Peterson

Brad Peterson is Manager of Strategic Accounts & Alliances for ARCHIBUS, Inc., as well as the company’s Federal Government Industry Manager (www.archibus.com). He recently spoke with the editors of “Managing Change” about the financial implications of real property asset management in federal agency operations, and what must happen in the future.

What is your title and what does your job entail?

I am the Manager of Strategic Accounts & Alliances for ARCHIBUS, Inc., as well as the company’s Federal Government Industry Manager. In that capacity, I am responsible for industry business development services within the Federal Government, I develop strategic partner programs for new companies associated with IWMS & Federal Real Property Asset Management, and develop new technology partnerships with ARCHIBUS.

What is your opinion of the financial implications of real property asset management in federal agency operations?

From a taxpayer’s perspective, I welcome what OMB has accomplished through the Executive Order 13327 (EO 13327) compliance requirements. From an industry perspective, better financial management allows those who participate in asset management and real property solutions to actually improve the awareness and business climate to support these requirements.

For the federal government industry, the past two to three years have been the most active for compliance and regulatory reporting requirements in the area of real property asset management – due largely to the support of the EO 133327 primary and secondary programs. Add in the government interest in scorecards, and the growing trends for performance measurement, and you have an additional basis for improved regulatory reporting.

Many clients and organizations now have focused and delineated plans of action to meet and exceed the operational reporting requirements for federal agency real property. To actually see them excited about compliance best practices – it gives us all a wonderful sense of accomplishment to be able to support their operational goals.

Of course, the immediate and short-term benefit for many federal agencies simply will be initial reporting compliance. Immediately following these requirements, however, will be the actual management of that real property data set. The process of gathering that initial set of data has identified many areas for improvement, and current inefficiencies. Now agencies must act on that data and commence improving their portfolio effectiveness.

Service and solution providers in the industry now have the opportunity to establish new and more effective ways to support federal agency organizations – including ways that we have not been able to in the past.

What milestones are you seeing as the most significant for federal agencies in complying with real property asset management?

It has been enlightening for me to see the energy and focus applied by the government to step up to the plate. The response to the compliance programs has been incredible – vast amounts of data have been assembled and digested to provide some immediate reports on agency portfolio utilization and efficiencies. From my standpoint, having agencies apply and utilize solutions to perform these reporting assessments has been rewarding.

As I mentioned before, the milestones that have been met to date have related only to preliminary data gathering. Granted it has been very comprehensive, but it has been only a preliminary data development activity. The next milestones will involve agencies assessing their information, evaluating and applying strategic decisions to act upon that information, and then the continuing measurement of their portfolio going forward.

The events of the past several years have been a wake-up call of sorts. I sense that federal agencies will become very adept at applying industry performance measurement tools, and will continue to look at areas of efficiency in the years ahead. The federal agency community for managing real property assets has changed, and the old habits of past won’t return. There’s a new game in town – real property asset management.