In the age-old question of trust, which provider wins the purse--network affiliations or national corporates? According to last week's GlobeSt.com Feedback Poll, 56% of our responding readers voted in favor of the nationals. We thought it appropriate then for the networks to have a platform to weigh in on the issue. We turned to NAI Global's Jeff Finn to do exactly that.

"It's a broad question, and the answer is that either can be better, more trustworthy or reliable. It really depends on how you put the national or the network together. In our case, we have put together a managed network that we believe is the optimal solution with both resources on the ground and a corporate infrastructure to manage the process.

"Largely, the industry, particularly in the US, is comprised of independent contractors, and at the end of the day, whether you have an employee or a contractor, you're dealing with people. No one owns the people, and in all cases, you need to train and manage those people. With the right structure you're able to do that and provide the quality of services that major corporations looking for.

"It should be pointed out that there are different types of networks; there are those that are very loose affiliations and those that have built a lot more tools and capabilities to address the issues and concerns the poll poses. In part, those issues are addressed through corporate personnel that provide quality assurance and training of the brokers in the field as well as a staff of senior institutional and corporate real estate executives to provide the capital markets or corporate real estate services required by clients. Layer in technology and infrastructure and best practices, and you have a very well-hone system in place."