Facilio’s CRE 3.0 report brings new insights into commercial real estate

Facilio Inc., the unified IoT, AI and ML enabled data-driven platform for Facilities Management, released a report titled ‘2020 State of CRE Operations 3.0’ which cites Tenants experience, Energy management and Data-driven operations as top priorities for commercial real estate owners in 2020. It also provides predictions on sustained interest in contemporary management models.  The report touches upon the current state of operations and the priorities of CRE owners across the US, Middle East and India markets, and highlights the growing demand for data-driven operations to drive operational efficiencies and optimization.

Key findings of the report include the necessity of optimal asset management, as according to the study, 60% of maintenance cost is spent on hard services, which can be reduced by 20% by leveraging real-time IoT data for predictive maintenance. This will also ensure unified digital record of inventory, purchase history, renewals, besides ability to continuously analyse the asset conditions, detect the faults and diagnose them. The report further states tenant experience is the key in view of providing satisfactory customer experience being the major concern of online shopping, telecom sectors as well as other  corporate and especially for the real estate industry. Rightly so, 77% of building owners prioritize tenant experience and allocate 39% of their operational findings towards the same. This goal, according to the report, can be accomplished through a dedicated tenant portal where occupants can communicate their grievances and workplace apps where employees can digitally connect to their physical workplace and personalise their experience within the building.

Driving Energy Efficiency and Sustainability through predictive maintenance is another suggestion provided by the report which states buildings account for 70% of the world’s electricity consumption, and CREs are willing to allot 65% OpEx of their budget towards energy enhancements. Piecemeal tools that offer building or system-level energy solutions have lost sheen, as they’ve been ineffective in meeting the sustainability goals of an enterprise. As the governments across the world also strive to bring climate change into control, the onus might be placed on the shoulders of building managers/owners to ensure their facilities comply with government’s policies in this regard.

Centralization of data is the one stop solution for modern CREs and in view of this the first step to smart buildings is centralizing operational data that can be used for tenant engagement, maintenance, sustainability, asset performance and so on. The industry has been sluggish in evolving from paper managed maintenance to a software driven approach. However, the need and the urge among owners to centralize their data is growing fast. The report says that 40% of tech investments are directed towards data centralization. Moreover, the maintenance cost of assets has seen an increase in US and UAE from 11.8 to 11.9 and 8.8 to 9.2 respectively. However, it has remained the same for India at 0.59. 

The benefits of Centralization of data include the ability to integrate tenant management, maintenance, sustainability, asset performance, etc, besides facilitating customized workflows and managing workspace across regions.  The collaborative and open - ended workspace also increases the productivity of the occupants also and due to premium occupant experience, the perceived property value also rises.

“The automation driven upgrade of commercial real estate assets, a few decades ago was labeled as CRE 1.0 focused on embedding buildings with hardware that delivered improved services and enhanced performance. The recent adoption of appropriate technologies labeled as CRE 2.0 consisted of CaFM (computer assisted Facility Management) and other software suites designed to act as point solutions for property management, maintenance, energy management, occupant applications, etc,” said Prabhu Ramachandran, Founder & CEO, Facilio Inc.  “Now with the rise of CRE3.0 – an innovative new data-driven model in commercial real estate operations  is making it possible to optimize asset performanceand achieve centralized and real-time management at an enterprise scale”

According to CRE 3.0 report Connected Building portfolios and a coherent end-to-end view of workflows and processes is set to become the norm in 2020 and onwards. In the context of the Middle East, a rise in the number of properties coming to market, the emergence of new segments, regulatory reforms, a Smart City vision and discerning customers are driving a major transformation in the industry.

“As we move into a new decade of change and evolution, it is increasingly clear that CREs need to focus on leveraging technology to boost building performance, secure maximum uptime, and provide seamless tenant experience across portfolios. And this report provides an eye-opening look at the current state as well a vision of the transformational impact of data-driven operations” added Prabhu.