Over the past five years, EG has been engaging with and highlighting some of the brightest next big things in the built environment.
Through our Rising Stars awards project and Future Leaders training programme we have amassed an alumnus of close to 100 potential new leaders of real estate. After a year like never before, EG asked the next generation three questions about the future of the industry:
- What the outlook for real estate in 2021 and beyond is
- What will be the biggest catalyst for change in the sector
- Who (or what) will be the most influential in real estate in the next five years
Here is what they had to say. A unique look into how to future-proof your business for success.
Oli Farago – CEO & Founder, Coyote Software
Outlook
As a fast-growing technology company working with influential fund and asset managers around the globe, our perception of the real estate industry is always rooted in technology adoption. You hear it often because it’s true – technology adoption in real estate is booming.
Even the most traditional players in the space are innovating in response to the realisation that younger, tech-orientated players in the space are catching up to them. 2020 was an accelerant in this regard – no one could have predicted what this year was going to bring.
The industry was trending in a direction toward mainstream technology adoption for years prior but the pandemic – which necessitated remote collaboration and real-time insights into asset/portfolio performance and risk – revealed that our industry is not as flexible as it needs to be when it has to face unprecedented circumstances.
Catalyst
Imagine if your commercial real estate investments could talk. The Commercial real estate industry is sitting on an unfathomable amount of data that can help mitigate risk, enable businesses working in and serving the sector to operate more efficiently, and provide more meaningful information related to performance that can be accessed from anywhere in the world, on any device.
This is the value that data can bring to commercial real estate organisations but, unfortunately, those who leverage it are a minority. Being able to simplify the importance of data and the opportunities that it represents to grow quickly, especially to up-and-coming players in the space, will be a huge catalyst for change in 2021.
Most influential
Data scientists – who are already in high demand – will become even more valuable to have on staff at commercial real estate companies. Right now, the CRE industry is in the process of centralising, cleansing and standardising data; The next step is drawing insights from that data, which will continue to be a key value proposition for third-party solutions providers like Coyote Software.
Those who embraced technology from the beginning are already on to step three – using data science and predictive analytics to make data-driven decisions.
In five years, the commercial real estate industry’s understanding of data will be far more sophisticated, and the next generation of real estate technology will be using machine learning to predict macro and micro trends that will drive occupation and create value.
This excerpt is from an article by Samantha McClary, originally appearing on EGI.
