Every technological innovation brings opportunities for restructuring the business landscape for various industries. So, what changes will the application of new technologies such as AI, big data, IoT, and 5G in the field of commercial real estate asset management bring to the commercial real estate industry? For commercial real estate asset management, improving operating revenue and asset value is the eternal theme pursued. And new technology will play a crucial role in breaking the bottleneck of value growth in heavily dependent human asset management, which is a new concept - ‘Technology Asset Management’.
Commercial real estate is a capital intensive industry. For example, an office building located in the inner ring of Shanghai is often worth billions of RMB. In the process of asset management, if the net operating income can be increased by 1% and the value can be quantified through financial instruments, then the benefits brought by technology are also at the level of 10 million RMB; This is precisely the value of technology asset management, and it is also what Shazamtech, an emerging technology enterprise in technology asset management, is committed to.
Shazamtech is a high-tech start-up enterprise in the field of commercial real estate asset management technology, focusing on researching the innovation and application of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things in the field of commercial real estate asset management. It uses technological means to help commercial real estate holders improve asset value and assist in the digital transformation of the commercial real estate industry. ‘Technology asset management is a very new concept, it is not equivalent to a real estate IT system,’ said Hailang Liu, CEO of Shazamtech. The real estate IT system mainly focuses on management optimization and is top-down, while technology asset management emphasizes the asset itself and is bottom-up. ‘We use technology to help asset managers open up resources and reduce costs, enhance asset value, and empower technology, rather than replacing paper and Excel forms for management empowerment.’ He added.
Although technology asset management is a very new concept, it is not out of thin air. The previous real estate market mainly relied on developing sales models to make money, which was relatively rough. However, with the development of the market and technology, the entire development trend is shifting towards refined operations and entering the era of large asset management. ‘At present, the entire real estate industry is facing changes, and the sense of crisis among developers is more severe than ever before. Real estate technology products have gradually been accepted.’ Hailang Liu said that the inventory pressure of real estate is very high, and refined operations are needed. From the perspective of the life cycle of architecture, the vast majority of time exists in the form of inventory, so asset management is the biggest theme. It can be said that smart buildings, IT system construction, and property informatization all serve asset management.
Of course, such a brand new ‘Blue Ocean’ market has also been observed early by discerning individuals. At present, in the market, in addition to real estate developers themselves focusing on technology asset management, many internet giants such as Tencent and Alibaba are also laying out their plans. In addition, some traditional software vendors are also innovating and keeping up with trends. However, Hailang Liu believes that the entire market is still in the stage of exploration, and there is still a lot of market space for Shazamtech.
Shazamtech has decided to integrate tenant management into the entire management of commercial real estate assets. Hailang Liu gave Shazamtech a very interesting name for its solution: Life of Everything, representing a process of everything from few to many, from simple to complex. ‘The solution is to connect the property owners, property managers, enterprises, tenant personnel, and the building itself of the entire building ecosystem, with the ability to perceive, self judge, analyze, and control like humans. Ultimately, the improvements and value advantages brought by these behaviors will be reflected in the revenue of asset managers’ financial statements.’ He explained.
It is reported that the Life of Everything Solution has several core functions: firstly, intelligent prediction of tenant leasing behavior, which can intelligently and accurately identify enterprises that have already settled during the lease term, as well as potential mid way rentals and mid way rentals that may occur; By proactively warning and taking early action, we aim to minimize the loss of tenants and reduce the vacancy losses of project units, thereby helping asset managers improve the net operating income of the project. ‘We will analyze the industrial composition of tenants and predict their behavior based on these data.’ Explained Hailang Liu.
In addition, this solution also includes an IoT and intelligent software analysis platform composed of artificial intelligence hardware, which can comprehensively cover various scenarios of office building tenant management. Tenants can choose multiple ways to enter and exit the building according to their own needs, such as access control cards, facial recognition, mobile QR codes, and ID cards, under the unified property management rules set by the property management company. On the other hand, asset managers can also automatically solve key conclusions required by asset managers based on various dimensional data generated by IoT hardware platforms, combined with intelligent algorithms provided by the system. The automatic risk control detection of enterprise big data can analyze the entry and exit of personnel in this building, including access. It can accurately grasp the characteristics of the personnel entering the building and the behavior data of the tenants in more dimensions, and conduct corresponding analysis to obtain the tenant's portrait data, providing more data reference for commercial complexes in terms of recruitment positioning, brand selection, etc.
It is reported that the Life of Everything Solution was officially launched in Aug. this year and has been in cooperation and negotiation with several major brands. Technology asset management is a brand new track, which not only means unlimited potential, but also indicates that the future is unknown. However, Hailang Liu believes that Shazamtech has its own advantage in the process of progress: the founding team. ‘This is the DNA of a company. Our founding team includes founding members from commercial real estate scenarios, internet technology research and development, and executives from Silicon Valley technology companies in the United States. We have the opportunity to emerge from the technology asset management track from 0 to 1.’ He said.