Prabhu Ramachandran

DUBAI, UAE, 24 February 2020: Facilio, which offers unified IoT-, AI- and ML-enabled data-driven enterprise platform for facilities operation and maintenance (O&M), recently released a report, titled ‘2020 State of CRE Operations 3.0’. Facilio said in a Press release that it has labelled the new era of data-driven O&M in commercial real estate as ‘CRE 3.0’, marked by the three-pronged industry focus on data extraction out of siloed building functions, data aggregation on a portfolio-central platform and the use of modular apps to perform data-driven operations acting on the insight-rich operational data to enable predictive portfolio operations.

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

According to the release, the report touches upon the current state of operations and the priorities of CRE owners across the United States, Middle East and India markets, and highlights the growing demand for data-driven operations to drive operational efficiencies and optimisation. According to the release, it broadly identifies the opportunities and challenges for commercial real estate owners as:

• Huge opportunity for technology to optimise operational spend: The primary frustration faced by CREs today is rising maintenance cost, influenced by automation data silos in operating technology (OT), dealing with dead-end tools for the expansive variety of functions (maintenance management to asset performance to the tenant experience) and limited access to portfolio-wide operational information in real-time.
• Maximising efficiency, energy management and customer experiences is a top CRE priority: Real estate portfolio owners are dealing with inflexible tools to manage primary business outcomes, such as maintenance, asset optimisation, and delivering outstanding tenant experiences.
• CREs understand the need to unify and harness operational data at enterprise scale: Currently, management of assets and optimisation of processes is limited by the lack of ready access to portfolio-wide operational information in real-time.

According to the release, the CRE 3.0 report also reveals that Connected Building portfolios and a coherent end-to-end view of workflows and processes constitute 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, Prabhu said, “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 as a vision of the transformational impact of data-driven operations.”