Marketplace can unlock efficiencies for CREs

Even by the standards of startup culture — which speaks of backing a good idea and refining it into a full blown paradigm disruptor — the beginnings of ‘Twitter’ border on the ridiculously optimistic. Try saying the kernel of the idea aloud to yourself.

Online marketplace Wadi.com and real estate portal PropertyFinder.com are some standout examples of the two-sided market, in the Middle East. However, the B2C applications were only the first step in a world of better relationships and more efficiently addressed needs. With simplicity at its core, the two-sided is primed to unlock powerful efficiencies for the B2B market, using real-time data and transparency to transform how work gets done.

One such set of innovations the two-sided market approach is facilitating lies within the realm of commercial real estate services. IoT collated data, AI and Machine Learning empowered real-time analysis are enabling a new and proactive model of command and control, which will revolutionize how owners operate their commercial real estate assets.

Commercial real estate services

Historically commercial real estate has been a huge family-tree of third parties, collaborators and vendors, branching off from every operational aspect. Can an IoT and AI based model resolve these complexities or will it add to them?

Portfolio-wide platforms can untangle this complex web within the CRE space. These digital platforms will enable an optimised and unified operational model, for the benefit of end-users as well as the businesses that service them. Both, commerce and functional efficiencies are empowered by the transparent, reliable and predictive model that such software solutions will help create.

In the context of commercial real estate, digital disruption isn’t just about a few process optimisation features and some capability to crunch numbers on the go either. The contemporary customer expects the same convenient and real-time response from service providers, which they have become accustomed to in every other walk of life.

For CRE businesses that hope to address such expectations with consistency, portfolio-wide digital platforms powered by IOT and AI, are the key to unlock complete system-wide transparency and real-time control. And with the two-sided market, this has become an affordable option for CRE owners.

How will investing in a digital platform set a CRE brand apart from its competition? The answers to those questions are actually rather unequivocal. These are not just small tweaks with which to claw out meager advantages. A commercial real estate business that adopts an enterprise scale digital platform is capable of radical improvements in their bottom-line results, unprecedented ability to deliver on sustainability goals, and outstanding occupant experiences.

The relationship between CRE owners and the many partners and vendors they rely upon is a critical behindthe-scenes aspect of commercial real estate. If even a single such service or amenity is sub-optimal, the entire operation is undermined. What this technology is capable of delivering is a completely integrated and optimal ecosystem.

“Portfolio-wide digital platforms powered by IOT and AI, are the key to unlock complete system-wide transparency”

PRABHU RAMACHANDRAN is the founder and CEO of Facilio. Views expressed here are his own and do not reflect newspaper’s policy.