Corporate real estate departments in companies are an accepted norm internationally but the concept is still to catch the fancy of Indian corporates.

Reliance Industries, Hindustan Lever Ltd, Infosys Technologies and Wipro are a clutch of domestic companies which have in-house real estate teams.

Multinational companies have clearly demarcated CRE departments to manage, and optimise the use of their real estate asset portfolios.

MNCs such as Siemens, Citibank and Cisco have CRE departments for their operations in India.

International real estate consultants say that India has been slow to adopt global real estate processes, standards and practices.

"Real estate is considered a major cost factor and large Indian companies have large real estate asset portfolios which need to be undertaken by the CRE department," said Anshuman Magazine, managing director, CB Richard Ellis South Asia.

"The concept of organised real estate industry is new in India," says Ramesh Nair, senior manager, corporate solutions, Jones Lang LaSalle India.

The main reason for Indian companies not adopting the CRE concept is that in these companies real estate activities are handled by the finance, administration or human resources department.

"A CRE department is not seen as core to a company's operations," a real estate dealer said.

"There is a misconception among Indian companies that real estate activities do not require specialised people in the field. The CRE department can identify and take advantage of ripe opportunities to optimise real estate assets and contribute significant value to the company's bottomline," Nair said.

Chanakya Chakravarti, executive director, Cushman and Wakefield (India), said, "CRE departments would enable companies to manage the real estate asset portfolio and thus optimise the diverse business portfolio, cater to various business needs and to add economic value to the existing real estate resources."

"Companies must always be keen about the current prices of real estate assets held by them. As how important the prevailing prices of stocks and shares are for companies, prevailing prices of their properties in the market are also important," he said.

Magazine said, "Efficient management, periodic reviews, constant re-engineering and effective implementation constantly contribute to a corporation's bottomline. Hence, its imperative for an organisation to have a specialised task force to manage real estate resources."

Nair points out that the larger the size of the organisation, the greater the need for the CRE department.

Large companies have real estate assets which need a department or a person who can offer specialised services.

This would be achieved most effectively by developing a strategic approach to cost containment initiatives and aligning real estate activities with the overall corporate objective.

Chakravarti said that to establish a sustainable competitive advantage, organisations would have to recognise their own capabilities and resources.

"CRE would be one of those key resources to achieve this objective," he said.

Magazine said: "Unlike MNCs, large Indian firms are unaware about CRE departments. However, there is a trend emerging among information technology companies to establish CRE departments."