Analyst Reports
Last month I visited the Hannover Messe trade show in Germany, which is an event focused on industrial technologies and trends. This might not the first place one would expect a Product Manager in real estate and facility management software to go, but I truly believe in cross-border thinking within our industry. Side note: if you really want to challenge your Fitbit step tracker, one day of exploring this enormous exhibition would be the answer.
During the event, I got a chance to experience working on a maintenance job for an airplane engine, supported by augmented reality. I used voice control to display the specific section of a manual and the maintenance history of the engine was projected onto my glasses. I saw artificial intelligence (AI) predicting the next disruption in real-time, based on a continuous flow of data and choreographed welding robots. We are facing amazing information technology applications that are currently shaping the Industry 4.0 - the name given to the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies.
Technology will revolutionize real estate management
For the past two decades IT technology in real estate, combined with human intelligence, has been supporting at the tactical level with a focus on standardizing processes. Software solutions are programmed to plan maintenance, prepare invoices, manage space, and support with accounting. This progress in technology is also helping to transform real estate management as we know it now. Building equipment like HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) will become self-managing agents, not only reporting issues but predicting issues, planning repairs, and fixing themselves when possible. AI-based inspection tools will not only use intelligence to identify the need for maintenance but also plan this alongside other sources of intelligence. For these processes on the tactical level, multiple types of AI will replace or provide far-reaching support for human intelligence.
A flexible shell of workspace
That being said, I believe that the most thought-provoking changes to technology in real estate management are not those on at operational and tactical level in maintenance and administration. The true transformation will be in the way we use, plan, and share real estate. New innovations in AI will make it possible to predict the need for workspace in more detail and fulfill that need based on multiple availability scenarios. This will support the core business better than ever and it will give new meaning to the role of corporate real estate. Just as AI is able to predict the weather for the next 14 days in a fairly accurate way and adjust website advertisements accordingly, real estate AI will be able to predict short term and long term workspace needs based on multiple parameters and data sources and propose scenarios based on multiple sources of intelligence. New platform technology will make it possible to share real estate, by taking a flexible shell and allocating the workspace to different departments or even different organizations. This arrangement can be continuously adjusted as needs change.
In the past, an investment in real estate was an investment in land and construction. Over the past 100 years, there was an increased focus on fittings and equipment. Today, a significant part of the investment is in IT within buildings. Just as technology is currently shaping Industry 4.0, it will also reshape real estate into, let’s say, Real Estate 4.0; buildings with a focus on technology that enable organizations to use, plan, and share workspace in ways we can barely imagine today!
Would you like to read more about trends that will shape both real estate and facility management by 2022? Then please download our white paper.
