BOMA International—Building Owners and Managers Association International

Oracle Looks Toward the Future of Property Management

By Jessica Bates

This is the fourth in a series of articles exploring the six different criteria evaluated by the BOMA 360 Performance Program®.

When the team at Oracle Redwood Shores took the stage in June at The Outstanding Building of the Year® (TOBY®) Awards to accept the most prestigious award in commercial building management, it was the culmination of years of hard work. “It was a tremendous honor to see our efforts recognized by our peers, the people who really understand what it means to have a well-run building,” says Jonathan Leder, building site manager for 500,000 square feet of office space on the campus, which is owned and managed by Oracle America, Inc.

Oracle’s path to winning the BOMA International TOBY Award in the Corporate Facility category included earning the BOMA 360 designation last year, a significant achievement for the 17-building, 3.4-million-square-foot campus in Redwood City, California, that serves as the headquarters for the global technology giant. All ten of the office buildings on the campus achieved the designation last summer. “Applying to BOMA 360 gave us the chance, as a team, to really look at how we were doing in each of the six categories of the program and make sure we weren’t overlooking anything,” Leder explains.

The category of Building Operations and Management, for example, required them to demonstrate that everything was going smoothly behind the scenes. While excellence in tenant relations or sustainability might be easy to spot, this category requires a team to demonstrate that each building is properly insured and that the financial documentation is in order, among other items. The team at Oracle Redwood Shores has a particular advantage when it comes to managing their documentation—they use Oracle Primavera, project management software created by the company they work for, which allows them to make processes like budgeting clear and transparent. “Even with something like financial management, it all comes down to relationships and communication,” Leder says. “We want everyone on the team to be on the same page and know what our priorities are, and technology is helping us do that more and more.”

In fact, the operations team at Oracle Redwood Shores has embraced the entrepreneurial spirit associated with California tech culture. When someone learns of a promising new product or best practice that fits with the strategic plan for the campus, it’s often given a test run. Recently, the team has been exploring a new type of green cleaning product that uses only tap water, salt and some basic chemistry. “We’re trying it in one property, and if it works, we’ll make it standard throughout the campus,” Leder explains. By constantly working towards improvements, the team has kept the buildings on campus on the cutting-edge. Visitors to the headquarters are often surprised to learn the campus is more than 25 years old. In fact, Oracle Redwood Shores has depicted futuristic headquarters in not one, but two movies over the past two decades—Bicentennial Man and Terminator Genisys. The modern aesthetic of the campus is augmented by a wide range of amenities—from onsite oil changes for employees’ cars to an expansive variety of food choices for employees.

Oracle’s dedication to the cutting-edge is part of what inspired the company to put their entire portfolio of office buildings located across the United States through the BOMA 360 program. “BOMA sets the standard in so many areas—from measuring space in our buildings to benchmarking expenses through the Office Experience Exchange Report—and the BOMA 360 designation is no different,” says George Denise, director of Facilities for Oracle Redwood Shores and director of Sustainability for Oracle. “There’s no other program like BOMA 360, which both sets the standard for best practices in the industry and recognizes excellence in building management and operations.” Denise is such a big believer in the power of the BOMA 360 designation that he recently became chair of the BOMA 360 Council, which oversees the program. By submitting the entire portfolio, Denise explains, Oracle is able to ensure that each building is achieving the same level of quality. The next step for the company, says Denise, is to submit their international buildings for consideration as well.

“The program has grown very rapidly over the past few years, and I attribute that to the enthusiasm of the building teams who have gone through the process,” Denise says. “We at Oracle are immensely proud of what we’ve accomplished and it’s wonderful to see that recognized with the BOMA 360 designation.”