TENANT'S CHOICE OF OFFICE LOCATION: A CASE STUDY OF SUNTEC CITY

Abstract

In today's modern world, it has been observed that branding has become an increasingly important tool to market a product. In the beverage industry, everybody knows the Coke brand just by its color and writing motifs. In the food industry, McDonalds has made so much effort in their branding efforts that the golden double arch sign is immediately recognized in at least any of the 119 countries it currently operates in. In the automotive industry, the three-pronged star of the Mercedes Benz is the symbol of luxury, and achievement. It comes to a point which the brand's name may even become even more important that the product itself. The idea and the recognition of a brand may reach a level when a target audience will immediately trust the brand's product based on its reputation which precedes the quality of the product itself. Ultimately, brands are all about trust which you can instill into consumers. With the constantly changing business environment, property developments need to continuously examine the way they operate in order to stay ahead of their competition. Tenants themselves are always looking for that extra boost which can propel them ahead of their competition. The business infrastructure which are available to them may at times determine how much an edge they have over their competitors. This in turn determines their choice of office space. This research was conducted to determine what attracts office tenants into selecting a particular office development to base their business. From this, a few important factors that attract office tenants to a particular development was dicovered. Among these are level of customer service which includes having a friendly and approachable landlord, having a quality property and facilities management team in a development, and having a reasonable service charge. Another important factor that plays a big part is brand awareness. The level of recognition of the development on a local and international front ranks quite highly to office tenants and this is especially true for multinational and foreign companies. Throughout this whole research, Suntec City was used as a case study because of its diverse office tenant mix comprising of local, foreign and multinational companies.