Many large corporations with significant property holdings are doing a poor job of managing, utilizing or even just keeping track of their real estate holdings, and could be spending way too much on things like office buildings, retail space or manufacturing space. That's the finding of a survey conducted by the global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing firm Accenture, which surveyed real estate executives at 181 companies. 

Athena Reilly, global lead for Accenture Real Estate Solutions, says that if large companies acted to optimize their real estate portfolios, "they could save anywhere from 5% to 40% of what they are spending on real estate." In many cases, that could be quite a lot of money.

Accenture surveyed companies that had at least $5 billion in revenue and 10 million square feet of property. "Sixty percent of the companies we looked at are spending over $250 million a year on their real estate," Reilly says, "with the money going for things like rent, staff, utilities, taxes and maintenance." Such companies, she says, might realize savings of $12.5 million to $100 million if they did a better job of managing their property portfolios.