ATLANTA-The corporate real estate portfolio of 2010 "will be reconfigured to low-cost/high-value locations," stated Barbara Hampton, CoreNet Global VP of Knowledge Management, at the CoreNet Global Summit here. And if you are a service provider, "you will need to make substantial investment in talent and infrastructure to survive in the future."

Those were some of the issues addressed during this morning's session, "Corporate Real Estate 2010: Enabling Work in a Networked World," which revealed some of the preliminary findings of a recently launched CoreNet research and professional development program. The program is geared toward identifying future business shifts and helping member s respond to them.

"We need to play a leadership role in the future of corporate real estate," to uncover "what is the next big wow," said Sean McCourt, CoreNet chairman and chairman of Ford Land, of the research program at the opening session, held at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta.

According to CoreNet officials, the initiative kicked of this past August in North America and in Europe one month later. Presently some 75 firms and 130 executives are involved in the study, which will focus on such areas as service delivery, asset management, portfolio optimization, integrated infrastructure management, technology and the web and leadership skills.

During the session, Hampton noted that the three basic changes in the corporate real estate will involve leadership, the nature of work and technology. "One of the keys to corporate real estate 2010 is the access to information," she said. And while many of the goals outlined by the study could be achieved before 2010, the one area that "may slow us down from making these achievements" is computer-network security.

Results of the study will begin rolling out on Nov. 1. White papers from each of the research teams will be issued in March and April of next year. Additional findings from the 2010 project will be incorporated into the CoreNet 2004 summit in Chicago next spring and at other organization events and executive development and chapter programs.

The Atlanta summit set a new attendance record for locally based CoreNet, officials report. Peggy K. Binzel, president and CEO of the organization, reported that more than 3,000 professionals and 800 exhibitors turned out for the five-day event, which concludes on Wednesday. Some participants speculate that the SARS-related cancellation of last spring's summit in Toronto helped boost Atlanta's numbers. CoreNet plans to take the summit back Toronto in the spring of 2005.