Real estate and workplace optimization requires more than sensors and IoT

With the flood of new technology solutions to improve space usage and management, “optimize” seems to be the word of the day. As one example, the business press highlighted a recent acquisition target as providing “software that optimizes offices.” In fact, the acquired company provides meeting room scheduling, admittedly very good scheduling, but not what most data scientists would define as true optimization and not what most of us would call “offices.” Similar examples abound in real estate and workplace software descriptions. 

Certainly new workplace software and tools are valuable. Sensors, IoT systems and software, and mobile apps that show workers’ locations provide better data on space usage. Office and meeting room schedulers improve efficiency in finding workspaces and coworkers. These tools can show opportunities and provide “actionable insights.” In simple situations, this information may be enough for optimization. In complex situations, where there are many different ways to take advantage of these opportunities, much more is needed for “optimization.” Overlooking other better solutions can cost millions.  

As real estate users face increasing competition, rising real estate costs and constant pressure to be more responsive, most organizations don’t have the luxury to be satisfied with just improvements. They don’t have the time for slow, inefficient manual processes to make decisions.

Most new real estate technology improves data collection and process efficiency. Core Planning goes further to bring new technology to decision making, moving beyond traditional spreadsheets and manual drag-and-drop solutions with advanced analytics. 

With Core Planning, we’ve found millions in overlooked cost savings and productivity improvements, all in minutes rather than the hours and days needed for traditional approaches. Projects can range from tactical blocking and stacking to multi-facility strategic analyses for campus, regional and national plans that support mergers, acquisitions, growth, and consolidations. Recommendations include which locations to acquire, dispose, renew, cancel, reconfigure and renovate and which business groups to relocate.

For more, please visit my Propmodo article, Real Estate and Workplace Optimization Requires More than Sensors and IoT.