Technology Priorities of Corporate Real Estate Organizations Show Balanced Emphasis – Through a CRE Technology Lens

In the Trascent 2024 Corporate Real Estate (CRE) Technology Survey, participants were asked the following questions regarding their priorities for 2025:

• Focus on business process improvements
• Implement a centralized data repository/data layer
• Implement advanced BI tools
• New application technology implementation
• Rationalize and optimize technology portfolio
• On-going change management
• Better integration between applications
• Deploy AI solution(s)
• Implement mobile app(s) for driving WX

Respondents were asked to rate their priorities on a scale of “Not a priority”, “Low Priority”, “Medium Priority” and “High Priority”. Based on these ratings, we arrived at an overall ranking of priorities – with the relative values (vs. absolute scores) being significant in our analysis. In this article, we will present a summary of the responses and their implications.

Context: Reference Model for CRE Capabilities

As context, we used the following reference model to frame the priorities:

As can be seen in the schematic, the core elements of any CRE team align with the familiar “four legs of the stool” that are intrinsic to the effective capabilities of the organization: People, Process, Tools and Data (aka capability pillars). In addition to the “four legs”, it’s equally important to highlight the four associated “enablers”:

• Roles: Well documented roles and associated competency models support the organization’s people in their responsibilities and performance.
• Standardized Work: A familiar concept of the “lean enterprise”, standardized work establishes the consistent processes and outputs of an organization thereby enabling continuous improvement.
• Domain Architecture: Every organization deploys tools and technologies to enable business processes and drive efficiencies. However, how the different tools interact, integrate and streamline standardized work across the organization is defined through the CRE Domain Architecture. An optimized Domain Architecture ensures that the right tools are invested in, redundant tools are phased out and disparate technologies are converged to organizational standards.
• Data Taxonomy Standards: These are critical for ensuring that data is organized and classified consistently across applications, thereby ensuring interoperability and reuse across the organization.

The four “legs” or capability pillars are supported by these four enablers – roles, standardized work, domain architecture and data taxonomy standards. Indeed, without them, the capability pillars can lack effectiveness as we can attest having conducted multiple technology assessments for our clients.

Priorities Summary

Based on our survey, respondents ranked their 2025 priorities as follows:

Based on the above responses, we can calculate a weighted priority score that results in the corresponding bar chart:

Here, the priority score is calculated based on the number of respondents who ranked each initiative as “High”, “Medium”, “Low” or “Not a Priority”. Based on the above, we can summarize the responses as follows (in decreasing order of prioritization):

Priorities regarding Process/Standardized Work:

• Focus on business process improvements: priority score of 67%

This is an important recognition that technology alone cannot drive an organization. The number one priority for respondents was improving business process.

Priorities regarding Data & Analytics/Data Taxonomy Standardization:

• Implement a centralized data repository/data layer: priority score of 63%
• Implement advanced BI tools: priority score of 57%

The second highest rated priorities reflect a trend we’ve seen for some time – a focus on data, analytics and the importance of data standardization that is a prerequisite for implementing a comprehensive data layer.

Priorities regarding Tools/Domain Architecture:

• New application technology implementation: priority score of 54%
• Rationalize and optimize technology portfolio: priority score of 49%
• Better integration between applications: priority score of 44%
• Deploy AI solution(s): priority score of 43%
• Implement mobile app(s) for driving WX: priority score of 34%

Priorities regarding CRE Technology:

Next in priority rankings were the three areas that relate to technology. Here, there is a marked contrast to earlier surveys regarding mobile apps for workplace experience (WX) which historically attracted much interest. Now, the highest priorities are Artificial Intelligence (although, not as high as the hype may indicate) and equally important is the significance of better application integration. Indeed, application interoperability within the CRE technology ecosystem is important for seamless enablement of business processes. Note that new technology implementation was the highest priority – indicating that respondents are looking for better solutions to replace the ones they have today or plug gaps in their organizational toolkit. Also, a significantly high rating was given to technology portfolio optimization. This underscores the importance of Domain Architecture and ensuring that the IT business partner organization continues to work with CRE for the most effective solutions and the retirement of ineffective or obsolete applications.

Priorities regarding People/Roles:

• On going change management: priority score of 46%

This focus area is important because it indicates that organizations recognize that to be effective, they must ensure that their most valuable assets – their people – are kept abreast of the unrelenting change that can swamp an organization. This is true both for CRE as well as at the enterprise level.

Key Takeaways

Based on responses to Trascent’s 2024 CRE Technology Survey, participants indicated that their top priorities were:

• Improving business processes
• Implementing a centralized data repository/data layer with advanced analytics
• New technology implementation, application integration and technology portfolio optimization
• Change management to keep their team members skilled and up to date

This shows that CRE organizations are taking a comprehensive approach to their 2025 initiatives with a balanced focus across process, data, technology and people. The responses also show a waning of interest in workplace experience technologies in favor of AI-based solutions.