It may seem counterintuitive, but using spreadsheets is one of the most costly ways to run your property management operations. In an increasingly competitive market, your business needs fit for purpose tools and technology adoption needs to be at the forefront of your organisational strategy and operations if you want to continue growing in the 21st century.
While there is initially no upfront cost, spreadsheets have hidden costs that over time will end up costing your business more.
In an industry where decisions and transactions can reach easily reach 7 or 8 figures, companies owe it to their stakeholders to move beyond the classic back of a napkin calculation, siloed information and incomplete data.
The spreadsheet in its current form has origins reaching back all the way to the 1960s, continues to be the tool of choice for many.
It is the go-to tool for storing information about tenancy schedules, rent arrears, and much more. Re-Leased see many companies that run their businesses off an array of spreadsheets that have been built over years with each containing separate but equally important pieces of information. The creation of each of these spreadsheets creates another data silo that can have enormous effects over time on efficiency and bottom-line profits.
One of the key problems with spreadsheets is that they are at the whims of the creator. This means that they more often than not contain mistakes. There are now studies that show that 90% of spreadsheets contain at least one inaccuracy.
For those in the commercial real estate sector, these errors can result in huge costs. As a business operator, you can only operate off of the information that you have on hand. If this information is incorrect or incomplete your decision-making has been compromised through no fault of your own.
Another key area of friction in using spreadsheets is the loss of time. Spreadsheet upkeep and use are time-consuming and this, in turn, means expensive. They take a significant time investment to get set up and then there is ongoing maintenance. Another point to consider is that they often then require the creator to provide context to the information that is stored within them. This can be a huge barrier for your organisation to moving quickly to respond to tenants, stakeholders and opportunities in the market.
So if not spreadsheets, then what is the answer for property organisations that want to increase their efficiency and accuracy?
Re-Leased offer a cloud-based solution tailored for those specifically seeking to move their operations off of spreadsheets. A central platform that you can access on any device that is both easy to use and well-designed on the front end and powerful and secure on the backend. We provide decision-makers within the property sector a built for purpose commercial-first solution that gives landlords and property managers smart automation of their daily administrative tasks and a centralised overview of one of their most precious assets, data.
Rather than spend hours updating your outgoings or conducting manual rent reviews, you can automate these tasks and focus on growing your business.
You can fall into the trap of 'because this has always worked' but for many reading this, you likely are working within an increasingly competitive market. You are competing for tenants, properties and customers, the old ways don't cut it anymore.
This is not progress for progress sake, but a practical approach to ensuring that you can reap the rewards of the technology now available to you. Technology adoption and digital transformation can seem daunting but the bigger risk is being left behind.
