Ravi Chandran
Chatbots and tenant portals top the 2019 most desired proptech list in Asia Pacific
Cushman & Wakefield (C&W) on Jan 10 published The Proptech Top 5 for Asia Pacific Asset Services report – their 2019 survey of over 100 clients across Asia Pacific on their sentiments towards proptech. The respondents include office asset managers, development managers, leasing managers and technology specialists across the region including Australia, China, Hong Kong and Singapore.
The report identified chatbots and real-time occupancy portals as the most desired proptech solutions, placing tenant experience firmly at front of mind. Chatbots present a game-changing opportunity to reduce costs for helpdesks amidst increasing call volumes and to enhance customer experience. The transformation of tenant portals will offer greater value by providing real-time data, connecting workers from different companies within buildings or landlord’s portfolio of buildings, and driving new revenue streams.
The respondents were also asked to rank the top five drivers for investing in proptech and their top five concerns around using proptech. Operational efficiency and improved capital growth emerged as top drivers for proptech, while the high costs of implementation and uncertainty over return on investment are the top concerns.
Dr Dominic Brown, Head of Insight & Analysis, Asia Pacific said “The survey results show that companies are currently focused on mitigating costs to drive improved financial performance of the asset. Landlords are clearly directing their core focus on efficiency and an asset’s capital growth prospects. However, the respondents to our survey have indicated a shift in focus to improving the quality of the workplace experience over the next five years.”
The Asia Pacific region is uniquely placed to adopt and harness the power of proptech. More than half, 62 per cent of the world’s millennials reside in Asia Pacific. There are in excess of one billion smartphone users in China and India alone, while smartphone penetration is as high as 69% in Australia. These drivers, together with a governmental desire to create leading edge smart cities generate a powerful force for change, which will drive the adoption rates of proptech in the region.
59% of the survey respondents indicated that chatbots are the #1 most desired proptech over the next five years.
C&W’s survey report on most desired proptech list in Asia Pacific noted:
“Looking to the future, the focus shifts from cost mitigation to “experience”. Over the next five years, an investable timeframe, the pieces of most desired proptech are chatbots and real time occupancy portals as indicated by over half of our respondents.
Running costs for helpdesks have remained stagnant over recent years with little opportunity for cost reduction other than geographical location and occupier density. Chatbots present a game-changing opportunity to simultaneously handle increasing call volumes and enhance customer experience.
Research from IBM suggests that 40% – 80% of common customer service calls can be taken by Chatbots and that by 2025, 85% of all customer interactions will be handled without a human agent. The upshot of this technology is helping manage costs whilst providing a superior level of service.
Tenant portals are nothing new, but the services they will come to offer in the future will be. The current offering is mainly around concierge services or to promote events. The future lies in real time analytics and interpersonal connectivity.
To build engagement, portals need to offer value. We are already seeing the evolution from concierge services to social sustainability and wellness. In the future, expect this to further transform to include real time occupancy data, connecting workers from different companies within buildings or the landlord’s portfolio of buildings, and drive new revenue streams. The next wave is XaaS – Anything as a Service.
Third-placed predictive maintenance is also expected to come to the fore in the next five years. Here we see a switch from the current focus on low-energy/high-efficiency building operations to keeping these services in optimum operating condition.
Multiple studies have shown that preventative maintenance activity costs just 10% of a major repair. Value generated from preventative and predictive maintenance programmes include reduction of equipment downtime, improved asset reliability and improved uptime metrics.”
Commenting on the C&W survey on the most desired proptech list in 2019, Mr Paul Ho, Chief mortgage officer at iCompareLoan, said, “the move of real estate firms and property service firms towards better technology adoption is understandable. It cuts down the need for excessive manpower to do more manual and routine tasks. It also lowers costs and improves efficiency of businesses.”
“Any business or property agents who refuse to upskill and use technology will eventually become redundant to the market and to their customers,” Mr Ho added.
Mr Ho said that iCompareLoan.com runs a full 2 – 3 days course on how property agents can produce such reports for their customers. He added that the trademarked course teaches Property Agents how to generate complicated Financial calculations using – Home Loan Report (TM) – in 3 mins flat. This helps Property agents to close deals faster and serve customers more professionally.
The Home Loan Report tool is a Singapore’s first one-of-a-kind analysis platform that provides latest updates of detailed loan packages and helps property agents, financial advisors and mortgage brokers to analyse home loan packages for their clients and give unbiased home loan / commercial loan analysis for their property buyers and home owners.
This trademarked tool is a one-stop solution that can help deliver a detailed home loan report to property agents in 3 minutes flat. This is especially helpful when agents who do not have knowledge on property finance calculations make cold calls to potential clients and need to have a thorough analysis at hand in order to best direct each client on what their property buying and selling options are.
