Nearly every CRE professional has heard of the importance of treating data as an asset that can provide a competitive advantage. In many industries, data is treated as the most valuable asset. Data may not show up on a balance sheet the way buildings, land, or other valuable assets would normally. However, it is very clear that forward-thinking asset managers and owners need to invest in the people, processes, and technology necessary to unlock the value of their data. What is often much less clear is how to get started or even why to do it. Data is the first key to answering the "what," the "why," and the "how" of a CRE portfolio.
What
Across a complex portfolio (with multiple asset classes, complicated waterfalls, and commercial loans, and even multiple property managers) it can be difficult just to get timely answers to such basic questions as "what is happening to my NOI"? This type of question should not only be thought about during quarterly investor reporting; it should be updated on a real-time basis as facts on the ground change. Lobby CRE aggregates rent rolls and property management system data seamlessly and can instantly be configured to alert an owner or asset manager as trends are identified. But this is only the first level of questions that CRE executives ask about their portfolios. The more difficult to answer, and frankly more important questions, is "why is this happening?" and "how can we can we improve?".
Why
So, in the above example, we now know that NOI is dropping past an unacceptable threshold. This information is useful, but with access to the right data and analytics, it is much more beneficial to be able to understand why. Is NOI dropping because customer acquisition costs have gone up? Did utility expenses increase due to weather? Perhaps maintenance costs are rising. Trying to unlock the answer to this question is nearly impossible without automation and secure, timely access to data.
How
Knowing the drivers that are dragging on profitability is helpful, but a modern data management platform can take it one giant step forward into suggesting how to improve results. By analyzing customer reviews on public websites, Lobby CRE may identify that a parking lot that needs resurfacing is upsetting customers. Or by analyzing survey data, Lobby CRE may determine that responding to maintenance requests faster would keep tenants happy longer. Perhaps colder than usual weather or prolonged rain in the forecast suggests that marketing dollars should be shifted to online rather than in-person marketing. Maybe vacated units aren't rent-ready quickly enough. With this kind of power, CRE leaders can make much better decisions in a fraction of the time.
Lobby CRE achieves all of this by making it simple to collect data from all popular systems and sources (property management systems, forecasting, CRM, survey tools, third-party data sources, even Excel and PDF documents). Lobby CRE then simplifies the process to combine these disparate sources into one CRE database to simplify reporting. Lobby CRE finally delivers insights to help owners answer what, why, and how.
Lobby CRE was built by CRE professionals for CRE professionals with the goal of helping to improve results across asset management, finance, and acquisition. Through Lobby CRE's analytics and reporting, owners are able to unlock insights into their businesses much faster and more accurately. Lobby CRE enables a transition from answering "what" is happening to a CRE portfolio – which itself can be hard and slow to do without timely data access – to answering "why" it is happening, to the much more valuable – and nearly impossible to determine without a data platform – "how" to improve it.
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