A Strategic Shift in Estate Management: DC Thomson Partners with Cadaema to Future-Proof its Property Portfolio

DC Thomson is a 200 year old, family-owned business, headquartered in Scotland with a flagship office in London and a presence around the globe.  The business is home to some of the UK’s best loved media brands that have been the voice of our communities for generations, thriving family history and energy communities and a trusted technology business Their property portfolio is wide and varied and provides an important local and regional focus for the communities the business operates within.

In 2024, DC Thomson partnered with Cadaema to develop a new delivery model to consider how to effectively manage the estate so that it protects its people and provides them with a safe and healthy place to work whilst also proactively considering the maintenance and repair of their buildings.

In initial conversations, DC Thomson were keen to articulate their objective from the new delivery model, to develop and embed a new way of thinking about estates critical to ensuring the sustainability of the organisation’s property interests.  The first step of this journey was to develop a repair and maintenance strategy.

Cadaema led a series of workshops with the DC Thomson team and distilled the following high level objectives that the new delivery model must deliver:

• Protecting the integrity of the estate, the value of our assets and our continued ability to deliver our core activities from within safe buildings
• Embedding statutory compliance and providing demonstrable proof of these activities
• Creating strategic capacity amongst the DC Thomson team
• Improving availability of estate and asset performance data
• Enhancing the occupier experience for staff and visitors alike
• Ensuring that the inherent culture of DC Thomson and our commitment to the economies local to our sites is maintained

Methodically running through each of these objectives and a structured matrix of options meant that the new delivery model was developed to include a hybrid of in-house expertise to retain the responsiveness and knowledge of the DC Thomson business and priorities alongside a third party partnership to leverage the benefits of technology and coverage and create a level of consistency around maintenance standards and data capture and presentation.

Cadaema led the market engagement process and procurement activity working closely with the DC Thomson team to ensure that the bids received addressed the technical requirements but also, critically, aligned culturally.

We are really pleased to be able to announce that, from 1^st April, 2025, CBRE Global Workspace Solutions will partner with DC Thomson to deliver this step-change to DC Thomson’s property portfolio.

Ian Simpson, Head of Estates & Operations at DC Thomson commented…

“We have been delighted with the structured and collaborative approach from Cadaema, which has been central to delivering not only successful outcomes through the procurement but also constructive internal engagement and buy-in to the process. We fully expect that the new approach will deliver long term, sustainable improvements to our maintenance regimes and data informed property strategies.”