Defining a corporate real estate management's (CREM) brand

Purpose – This paper aims to explore how branding theory can be used to understand corporate real estate management's (CREM's) relationships with its customers. Specifically, the perspectives of CREM executives and customers are used to develop a statement of a CREM brand. Design/methodology/approach – A multiple case study approach from four industry sections that consist of telecommunications, logistic, retail, and education from an emerging real estate market (Malaysia) and a mature real estate market (Australia). CREM executives and CREM customers from each case were interviewed to obtain information on CREM within organisations. Findings – The findings indicate that CREM supports the business by managing organisations' strategic real estate resources as its brand. CREM executives focus more on the technicality of real estate functions, while CREM customers expect corporate real estate (CRE) to support their business functions. Research limitations/implications – A CREM brand is important to CREM relationship building with the targeted customers. Successful brand development is able to increase CREM visibility to customers and at the same time gain appreciation of its contributions to the organisations. Originality/value – This is the first study that investigates CREM from a branding perspective. The mechanism for communicating CREM contributions using branding helps to increase acceptance from the customers.