Case Study: Trammell Crow Company

Best Practices Report: Implementing the SiteStuff Bid Management Solution
SiteStuff and Trammell Crow Company Partner to streamline the Request for Proposal process

Background

For Trammell Crow Company (“TCC”) taking service contracts out to bid is a contractual obligation, but at times can be a tedious process for a busy Property Manager. By using the SiteStuff Bid Management Solution, this process can be streamlined to a more effective and efficient process for both the service provider and the Manager. Grayson Gill, Principal with Trammell Crow Company in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, believes that the SiteStuff Bid Management Solution is the wave of the future for bidding building service contracts. “Our Managers will still have 100% control over scope, bidder selection and awarding. This tool is a user based tool designed to help facilitate the interaction between service providers and Managers.”

Solution

With SiteStuff, property managers use many features to realize the benefits of a better bidding process. The Bid Management Solution provides a central repository for tracking all documentation during the bidding process. Also, properties have one central location to go to for all records, as well as scope of work templates that use best practices when developing specifications for building services. This allows TCC to develop tighter scope of work documents, which in turn allows service providers to develop better programs to save properties time and money.

“Using SiteStuff, there is a standardization that can be deployed across all TCC markets” says Gill, “property managers are able to define their specifications from the same documents that all TCC managers are using, providing a standard business practice and helping us deliver more value to our clients.” This solution is also flexible enough to handle an individual property’s needs by providing the capability to attach documents in the system and customize the TCC template. “For property specific scopes, existing documents can be attached to the RFP.”

SiteStuff also acts as a central repository for all Request for Proposal (RFP) information. “Our managers are now better equipped to reduce the risk and liability associated with building service contracts. Documents that were included in the bid process are available by property online; we will not have to search for information when an owner requests it, instead it will be available at a click of a button with this solution.”

Deployment

In order to effectively deploy this type of solution in commercial real estate, not only is the value that improves the day-to-day operations for the property important, so is working through obstacles that may slow down the change management process. SiteStuff has worked very hard to do both. "There is no reason for properties not to use this tool. Using SiteStuff, managers can save time, build better scope of work documents and still maintain relationships with the service vendors of their choosing. Once an RFP is created, that process can be duplicated, thereby making it much easier in the future. Property managers can look to turn this function over to their support teams, and in turn have more time to focus on the tenants." Trammell Crow Company DFW region has self imposed a requirement to have all contracts sourced through SiteStuff. "In order to fully recognize the value of SiteStuff, all building maintenance contracts should be sourced through SiteStuff. This will give us the ability to track and forecast our services spend and help us negotiate better national contracts."