How an Intelligent Digital Backbone Makes Life Easier for CRE Landlords

The world of work is rapidly evolving, and so are the types of office spaces and experiences that people want. 

Occupier expectations for secure, amenity-rich and seamless interactions in the workspace have accelerated the need for digital enablement and effective technology strategies in modern real estate. 

Creating digitally enabled buildings and spaces often requires engaging with multiple technologies and vendors to achieve the desired outcomes. However, this can result in some level of complexity, especially when done at scale across a portfolio.

Utilizing multiple vendors can lead to disparate systems that can’t communicate, and the potential for increased vulnerability to security threats. Together, these problems can create headaches for building owners and occupiers alike.

“Curating seamless and successful customer experiences at scale with technology is hard when the solutions you have aren’t easily replicable. For example, it would be difficult to manage five or six different vendors across every single building you own or operate. It becomes an operational nightmare,” said James Shannon, chief product and technology officer for essensys, the intelligent digital backbone for commercial real estate. 

From a security perspective, using multiple vendors can also leave you vulnerable to risks and breaches. “A security issue can have a compounding effect – a landlord’s security problem quickly becomes their tenants’ security problem, and likely a reputational problem as well. The impact is tenfold or more in a large building or portfolio,” said Shannon.

Ironically, the key to implementing complex technology infrastructure for digital enablement is simplicity – having the right foundation to provide an easy-to-scale system that can deliver the right technology to overcome complex challenges of modern real estate. 

Shannon and essensys understand these challenges well. The essensys platform removes the complexity of managing in-building networks to deliver digitally enabled, multi-tenanted and scalable office environments for landlords and flexible space providers. It allows them to offer the highest level of enterprise-grade security certified to the strictest international standards, reduce complexity at scale, and meet evolving tenant needs. 

According to Shannon, the first step in solving the issues associated with network complexity is automating the many traditional IT tasks using intelligent network automation. Automated processes simplify network management and monitoring and can drive greater data and analytics, faster move-in speeds, and an overall more compelling proposition for tenants.

“Intelligent network automation, unique to the essensys platform, can counter human error,” Shannon said. “When a tenant moves in with 200 employees, they could need a private network, booking systems and physical access, just to name a few of the digital services. The key is to automate those operational tasks. You don’t want to just rely on a human to create all those users and configure those networks because that doesn’t scale. That’s also where risk comes in.”

If, for example, a landlord has a tenant moving into a building on a certain date, he can input the tenant’s information along with the move-in date, and the essensys platform sets up their network, establishes security, and removes human error from the process completely, creating a seamless experience for tenants.

“For me, it’s about how the essensys platform simplifies the operational complexity,” said Shannon. “A lot of asset managers and landlords have not historically managed large IT teams as part of their roles. However, in today’s modern real estate landscape, they’re having to manage and deliver technology. Leveraging a platform like ours allows them to simplify a very complex area of their business.”

Enabling landlords to evolve with market dynamics such as flexibility and the flight to quality, and even helping to achieve sustainability targets, is why essensys serves as the intelligent digital backbone for so many commercial real estate companies, such as Industrious and Studio by Tishman Speyer.  

The essensys platform revolves around the philosophy of
“connect, control and create.” The company’s global private network connects every location with secure enterprise-level connectivity. The unique intelligent network automation in the platform enables control of buildings and spaces, allowing customers to create future-ready real estate by simplifying the conversion of physical space into the digital world.

“We take a holistic approach to our customers’ portfolios,” said Shannon. “We connect their buildings and enable them to control the space and to create seamless experiences for their tenants. The key aspect that makes us unique is that we are providing a central point to automate control over systems, spaces and digital services.”

With these areas holistically handled, the simplicity, security and scalability of intelligent networks ensure that landlords can effectively and strategically digitally enable their portfolios, making their assets future-ready for their occupiers in today’s fast-evolving office sector.