The Future Of As-A-Service (AaS) And Commercial Real Estate
There’s a popular tweet often featured on compilations of funny social media posts that reads:
“1998: Don’t get in strangers’ cars — don’t meet ppl from the internet. 2016: Literally summon strangers from internet to get in their car.”
It's a bit of a facetious description for app-based car-sharing services, but reflective of how rapidly and drastically the global service industry is evolving. This new “as-a-service” (AaS) economy is creating a world built on outsourced services and materials. And commercial real estate is not exempt.
Traditionally, firms have retained their own in-house engineers, architects and (in some cases) data experts. Rather than sourcing tasks to experts, in-office employees find themselves completing deals or performing research outside their jurisdiction. This inhibits value creation.
Commercial real estate stands to gain a great deal of power by plugging directly into services specifically designed to deliver intelligent, personalized operations in their respective fields. Quality is more important than quantity, and specialization ensures it every time. Specialized servicers typically have technology uniquely fitted for the tasks at hand, and rarely necessitate lengthy, complex installations due to their “freelance” nature.
Yet two-thirds of real estate businesses remain ill-equipped to adapt to this new economy, according to a 2016 Accenture Operations report on AaS published by HfS Research. A further 70% of large enterprises do not anticipate switching primary operations to AaS for another five years.
That’s not to say companies are universally opposed to making the transition to AaS — 44% of surveyed senior executives would transition from legacy IT systems and move to business cloud storage/management if the replacement solution can both supplement current value and significantly speed up processes. And though 29% of midlevel managers prioritize AaS adoption, 53% of operations leaders — including within CRE — do.
The key to accommodating, nurturing and encouraging this switch in the real estate industry lies in proving the value of AaS services to real estate businesses.
Take, for instance, New York-based CRE software and solutions firm Real Data Management’s analytics platform. Employing RDM’s system eliminates the need for a bulky in-house system dedicated to file sharing/storing, floor plan access and project management, and predictive analytics.
Rather than scattering leasing data and info across an array of Excel spreadsheets, platforms like RDM’s RealAccess software feature highly advanced tools built to expedite value creation.
Employing CRE management programs gives brokers and businesses capabilities unique to their buildings’ floor plans and accounting links; augmented reality abilities through drawing tools, hypothetical space division, and Facility Interactive Floor Plans that directly overlay HVAC, electrical and mechanical rooms right on the plan; and the ability to uncover new rentable spaces through remeasurement services in accordance with the most recent BOMA standards.
RDM is crafted specifically for real estate management and is managed by the firm’s experts and software.
“A lot of customers think of this kind of software as an extension of their company,” RDM VP Ryan Green told us. “It streamlines older workflows by taking out complications and inefficient manual operations to create a simpler process for impacting how we lease, build and manage property.”
To learn more about Bisnow partner RDM, click here.
