Lendlease wins Big with Google in Silicon Valley
Lendlease wins Big with Google in Silicon Valley
In New York, Lendlease’s head of development, Melissa Burch, led the charge, winning bids on waterfront projects like 1 Java Street, which she says will be aided by Lendlease 2020, an information-sharing agreement between global businesses. ‘Company gives approvals from design to development.
Lendlease also won with the construction of rental housing, known as multi-family housing in the United States. The group’s partnership with the Aware pension fund has already distributed $ 2.5 billion in business and development.
But the big competitive win for Lendlease was the deal to develop Google’s land in Silicon Valley into $ 15 billion ($ 21 billion) of housing.
Denis Hickey, Lendlease’s global chief operating officer and head of Americas controls an enviable global fiefdom, from building Google’s new physical world, to skyscrapers in New York. He stated that Google ran a process with all the large global houses and then chose Lendlease as their joint venture partner. They explained to them and their employees that the lion’s share of this decision was due to Lendlease’s culture and capabilities.
But a few months ago, among the entire Lendlease operation, there was not a single can of stainless-steel spray desperately needed to clean an awning before the opening of a new building.
“We couldn’t get a can of stainless steel to clean the awning for four months. It was bizarre. All elements in the supply chain have been affected,” Hickey tells The Australian Financial Review from a property overlooking the Manhattan skyline.
Australian Financial Review reported that Hickey is still grappling with the vagaries of a COVID-19 -induced global supply chain blow-up that has seen volatile costs in everything from timber to labour.
“Is it transitory? Or is it permanent? I tend to think the bulk of it is transitory,” he says in a wide-ranging interview covering the 30-year high in inflation, Lendlease’s growing partnership with Google, the working from home phenomenon and a new leadership structure that is set to save the company $160 million.
“The real question to ask is if prices went up 10 per cent, then when demand-supply comes back into balance will they fall 10 per cent or will they just stay at the new norm?”
There are so many restrictions on bringing people back to the office and forcing people to return to the office that employers are still unable to assess whether they will ask people to return.
Denis Hickey, Lendlease’s chief operating officer and chief of the Americas, sees an opportunity in the supply chain crisis. AFR
“Pre-COVID, there was a culture that the office dominated everything. That paradigm has been challenged. And I think it’s a great thing. We will never go back to the way we used to ».
“But the question now is: what will it be like going forward? I think micro teams will understand this. My personal opinion is that it will take two years to figure this out. It will probably take two years for various organizations to try various things to figure out what the right solution is. “
“While we are considering a return to the office, there is an order of importance to making a decision.
“What we are thinking is that there is a hierarchy in that decision. The first hierarchy is what is best for our customers, clients or partners. The second hierarchy is what’s best for the team and the company. The third half of the hierarchy is what is best for me and the individual. “
People who do less interactive jobs are more likely to work from home more. Project managers, on the other hand, will need to interact more frequently and it will take time in the office for what Hickey calls “spontaneous collisions.”
“If most of my days are devoted to individual data processing, the flexibility decision is largely generated around me, the individual, and if what works for me is that I want to come one day a week and working from home for four, then that makes sense as you move through that hierarchy. “
Catch up on Similar News
REFERENCES
- Lendlease sees endless opportunities in Google, supply crisis
By Matthew Cranston
- Lendlease sees endless opportunities in Google, supply crisis
By NewsDesk
- Digital and Sustainable: Lendlease and Google Cloud Partner to Digitally Transform the Built World