With all that in mind, many landlords and asset managers are currently re-thinking what their product and offering should be to stay competitive and how it should reflect all the latest trends (think digitization, remote work, ESG, wellbeing expectations, data). With all the goals that should be covered, it can be difficult for landlords to navigate the right way for their unique business case.

In terms of implementing the technology, one question gets repeated in the conversations I have: what is in the competence of landlords and what are the topics each individual tenant should address.

As I wrote in my previous article, stepping into this new era, I believe every building should have a digital layer to allow better life in buildings. To enable that, properties need to run on an operating system to create an elevated experience for occupants.

But every OS is a complex thing with many use cases to consider. So speaking about a commercial building, what does it mean? Where should you as a landlord or asset manager start?

From our perspective, the tenant experience platform has two verticals:

Connected building and portfolio – to set the infrastructure for future integrations, streamline communication, enable mobile access system, guest management, payments, issue reporting, on-demand amenities and services, energy monitoring and finally work with analytics to understand customer needs and preferences. Altogether, this presents the heart of the building.

Empowering tenants – every tenant should be able to set their private digital environment, where they can operate their workplace in the new way of working (agile, hybrid, hub & spoke...) with features supporting on-demand booking of hot desks, meeting rooms, monitoring of occupancy, air quality data and much more

The success of a landlord largely depends on the success of tenants. The success of a tenant company largely depends on the success of teams and individuals, their happiness, productivity, and in turn, loyalty.

Thus, sporting tenants should be one of the landlord’s top priorities. In conclusion, a progressive landlord should introduce both layers. This strategic approach puts landlords in the driving seat of these changes with the right tech infrastructure that attracts, retains and fully empowers tenants.

On top of that, it brings a full advantage to stay competitive in a market that is heavily shifting to flexible space operations. Finally, landlords get prepared for a tech-enabled future and successfully integrate both physical and digital aspects of life in buildings. With the right OS, your building is no longer a piece of hardware that requires CAPEX for every update, but rather a Tesla car that is getting updated to keep up with the always-changing world.

Thanks to the huge effort of our team, inputs from our clients and partners, we plan a significant upgrade of the Spaceflow platform which is going to be released in mid-2021. Our aim with this update is to empower landlords all over the world with the best off-the-shelf technology to implement both these verticals in an easier way. What to look forward to? Our platform will get a fresh look and will get fully integrated and customizable. All modules are currently being enhanced based on the product discoveries with occupants and long-term cooperation with some of the top global real estate owners. Stay tuned!