For IT professionals, managing complex systems and ensuring operational efficiency across departments is a daily challenge. However, one area that often gets overlooked—yet holds strategic value—is real estate and facilities management (RE/FM). Without a streamlined IT infrastructure, supporting real estate technology solutions becomes a major hurdle, impacting everything from operational costs to compliance and sustainability.
The True Cost of IT Complexity in Real Estate
IT complexity in real estate IT management often results from fragmented systems operating in silos. This lack of real estate software integration hinders data sharing, process automation, and decision-making, leading to significant inefficiencies:
- Data Silos & Integration Challenges:
Real estate and facilities managers depend on centralized data for lease management software, energy optimization, and compliance tracking. Without seamless integration, unifying real estate and facilities data becomes a challenge, resulting in inefficiencies and duplicate efforts. - High Maintenance Costs & Technical Debt:
Managing multiple legacy systems requires constant IT troubleshooting, security patches, and manual workarounds, consuming IT budgets and resources. - Security Vulnerabilities & Compliance Risks:
Many real estate technologies lack enterprise-grade security and compliance controls, making it difficult for IT teams to align with GDPR, SOC 2, ISO 27001, and U.S. real estate IT compliance standards. Cybersecurity concerns also arise due to outdated infrastructure. - Lack of Scalability & Flexibility:
Fragmented real estate and facilities (RE/FM) tools hinder the deployment of cloud-based facilities management and AI-powered automation, which are essential for modern workplace technology solutions. As businesses adopt hybrid work models, outdated systems limit agility and adaptability.
For IT leaders, this presents both a risk and an opportunity. Addressing IT challenges in real estate can drive efficiency, security, and strategic business value.
Instead of viewing real estate management as a secondary function, IT leaders can drive digital transformation by optimizing RE/FM systems. Enterprise real estate software, such as Planon for SAP S/4HANA®, enables IT teams to streamline operations, enhance security, and improve cross-department collaboration.
- Unify Real Estate Data: A centralized platform provides real-time data access, seamless collaboration, and intelligent reporting across IT, finance, and real estate teams. IT teams gain greater visibility and control over facilities management operations.
- Automate IT-Intensive Workflows: AI-powered real estate automation streamlines lease tracking, space planning, and maintenance scheduling, reducing IT workload and eliminating the need for manual interventions in outdated systems. Predictive analytics for real estate can further enhance efficiency.
- Strengthen Security & Compliance: Enterprise-grade security protocols ensure compliance with global and industry-specific regulations. Role-based access controls enhance IT governance in real estate, reducing cybersecurity risks.
- Scale with Cloud-Native Architecture: A cloud-based real estate solution supports IT-driven digital transformation initiatives, enabling scalability, agility, and cost-efficient resource management.
How can IT leaders in real estate take control of IT complexity and drive innovation? Here’s a roadmap:
Audit your current systems:
- Evaluate the integration capabilities of existing real estate IT software.
- Identify inefficiencies, redundancies, and manual processes that slow down operations.
Collaborate with real estate stakeholders:
- Understand the challenges real estate managers face, from lease tracking to sustainability compliance.
- Align IT strategies with business objectives to implement the most effective solutions.
Invest in an integrated real estate platform:
- Adopt solutions like Planon for SAP S/4HANA®, which offer clean core compliance, advanced analytics, and seamless SAP integration.
Leverage AI & automation for IT efficiency:
- Deploy predictive analytics and AI-powered automation to reduce IT intervention in real estate management workflows.
- Improve system performance, data accuracy, and operational efficiency.
By proactively tackling IT complexity, IT professionals in real estate can move beyond troubleshooting disconnected systems and take a strategic leadership role in real estate IT management. Reducing operational costs, improving data security, and enabling scalable digital transformation creates measurable value for IT teams and the entire organization.
Explore how Planon can help your IT team integrate and optimize real estate management with SAP S/4HANA®.
