How data turned property management confusion into confidence

COMMENT Health and safety were top of mind when the world shut down, but it wasn’t merely a departure from day-to-day behaviour – it was a swift move away from normalcy. Property managers were in a particularly challenging spot; they were required to completely close many of their buildings as soon as possible. Per social distancing and stay-at-home guidelines, at JLL we had to rapidly adjust the volume of services provided across the majority of our 1,500 multi-occupied buildings. This created a series of challenges for property managers. There was one exception to the rule that rendered this process more complicated: we could not prevent anyone from accessing essential services, such as getting groceries or prescription medicine. In order to comply – and carefully select the degree to which each building would close – property managers needed immediate and deep insight into their portfolio to understand which properties this related to. Empowering property managers This could have been an insurmountable task, especially at a time when stay-at-home orders were coming into effect that changed our working practices. At JLL we were able to leverage data analytics to provide property managers with a comprehensive, up-to-date picture that would empower them to make the right decisions for each building they operate. Data analytics proved to be especially powerful in providing senior management with a prompt and seamless way to record what was happening in terms of site status. They, along with our site-based teams, used the Qlik Sense data analytics platform to merge the most important information with the underlying ERP data. We visualised it in a view-only app that allowed managers to see – in near real-time – what was in their portfolio across the country. This allowed staff to more easily and efficiently close the right buildings in March and safely manage their reopening in the summer. Best of all, we were able to develop the new dashboard in just four business days, going from requirement to design and testing – and then to deployment – to solve a problem no one saw coming. That level of agility has paid off tremendously for us and has enabled us to continue operating during this difficult period. Day-to-day processes With multiple challenges brought on by the pandemic, we also had to ensure that our employees’ day-to-day processes were as easy as possible so they could focus their time on more complex and challenging parts of their job. This would only be possible with a reporting system that could be easily used by the majority of the team. That system would also need to enable the fulfilment of the credit control activity and allow for the recording of notes and actions, as well as the automation of communications out to occupiers. We learnt that we could achieve this using our data analytics platform, which had the desired reporting functionality and the ability to deliver correspondence to external parties. Better still, because of its open-source nature, a writeback extension could be implemented to empower the credit control team to insert notes and select specific drop-down attributes – diaries, events and activities – against individual occupiers and charges. This was nothing short of a revelation for us. Now property managers have more time to focus on managing relationships and other, more vital tasks. Data analytics played an integral role in giving our property managers essential visibility into their portfolio, and without it they would not have been able to act as quickly or effectively. This would have created a blind spot during one of the most difficult periods the world has ever faced. Future applications And while the challenges brought on by the pandemic have yet to go away, we are now encouraged and inspired by the ways in which we can use data across every area of our organisation. We are eager to learn more about our footfall and turnover rent, as well how even the weather might correlate to higher or lower sales. We also want to unite data around sustainability, as well as health and safety, and bring them on top of our ERP sources. This will help us ensure that JLL is not only running as effectively as possible, but we’re putting those same skills into action to ensure our properties are safely, responsibly and sustainably run. With analytics, we can fulfil our desires and become smarter and more efficient, increasing our flexibility to adapt to this changing landscape while building resiliency for whatever comes next.   Robert Sanders is head of technology at JLL Photo by James Veysey/Shutterstock