The blurring of lines between personal and professional life in today’s hyper-connected world drives the need for people to be able to work anywhere, shop anywhere on and off-line, to
relax anywhere.
Occupiers are now having to consider leisure and lifestyle qualities of a location driving demand for mixed or omni-use communities. From a real estate perspective, this is more than just a move towards hot-desking or more flexible working patterns. Now that people can work anywhere, what would once have been their workplace is now where they come to engage, relax and live, as well as work.
Millennials to younger generations all want to be connected with everything through technology. This presents a whole new opportunity for today’s emerging real estate to engage with the different parts of its omni-use community, adding value to the location and driving sales.
This is where PropTech can really deliver. Michelle Buxton, Toolbox Group Managing Director, explains: “In developing our real estate community engagement and management technology Mallcomm, we placed people very much in the centre of that. You might have retail workers, office workers, residents and other shoppers visiting your destination, but they are all customers and they all interact with your place.
“There are a lot of different ways in which they do that, but there are also a lot of common ways, so we’ve been able to develop a platform flexible enough to work for the whole community – Mallcomm. In a nutshell, owners and managers of omni-use real estate communities don’t need to be considering several different technologies for workers, residents and visitor but can now find technology that can engage them all.”
So what should you be looking for from your connected tenant technology? Through experience in developing award-winning real estate management and engagement technology, we have outlined these areas as key to consider when looking for a platform to create the connected tenant environment:
Creating community
It is human instinct to want to be part of, and belong to a community. What’s on, travel info, special offers, new products and services are all important types of information for the people who work, live and shop there. By making this information readily accessible, and even allowing workers to communicate with each other, it creates that great feeling of community, adding value and creating loyalty to your place.
Creating the connected building
Access to property, car parking, environmental system control, food ordering and other services in the location, all enhance the tenant experience. A platform that allows this kind of interaction to be intuitive, adds a lot of value to that location for the user.
Reinforcing security
In an emergency, messaging needs to be quick, provide real-time feedback and go to the right people at the right times. You should be looking to be able to send different messages to different levels of people during an evacuation. Panic Button features are more and more important, so your tenants have the ability to alert your security teams if they feel unsafe.
Integration with third-party systems
The integration of different classes of PropTech has become more and more advanced.
Property management technology can now link up with most of third-party systems from turnover and footfall collection to car parking management, integration with retail PoS and in-app payments. Additionally, you can have real-time access to a complete overview of your building and in-depth reporting on usage and engagement in all areas of operations.
Driving operational efficiencies
Tenants need to be able to carry out property-related tasks with super efficiency. It is also both in the tenant’s and landlord’s interests to make sure the whole environment is kept clean, safe and appealing. By linking improved communication and operational function, technology can be used to transform operational management efficiencies for all stakeholders. Maintenance and cleaning ticketing, staff management, health and safety management and much more are all part of the wider property management functionality you can expect from your property management technology.