It’s no secret that data will dictate the winners in the next phase of the market cycle. But data alone isn’t enough. To supercharge your competitive edge, you need a proprietary deal database and holistic technology strategy to surface winning opportunities and unlock insights within the data.
How can you sift through the noise to tap into market intelligence when you need it? What actions can you take to tear down data silos? How are analytics setting a new standard for data-driven precision? What does emerging innovation mean for the future of decision making?
Earlier this year, we hosted a panel of thought leaders from LaSalle Investment Management, Altus Group, LionPoint and Dealpath to answer these questions in a discussion about the future of data, decision making and performance in CRE.
To learn the most powerful insights from the webinar, read the recap, watch the summary video or watch the full session on demand.
Watch the Webinar Recap Summary
If you’re eager to see the most important highlights from the webinar, watch the recap via the video below.
Elevating Data-Driven Decisions: The Most Important Insights From the Webinar
Below, we recap some of the most important takeaways that were unveiled during the webinar.
1. Doubling Down on Technology Strategies to Achieve Global Economies of Scale
For LaSalle Investment Management, uncertain market conditions offered the ideal opportunity to reset their technology strategy.
As an industry leader with a global footprint, the firm’s investment strategy is diversified across multiple platforms. Consequently, regional data silos created operational friction. A lull in activity represented the ideal opportunity for LaSalle Investment Management to prioritize technology optimization.
Dubbed “1 LaSalle” and supported by the CEO, this digital transformation project sought to break down these data silos in the pursuit of efficiency. According to Sach Diwan, Global Head of Digital Products, this space offered the firm the time required to centralize its data in a global platform, creating economies of scale. Once market conditions improve, LaSalle–and other firms that seize this opportunity–will be well-positioned to more effectively identify and execute on new opportunities.
See how LaSalle broke down silos and centralized data with a new technology strategy.
2. Delivering Trustworthy AI-Powered Insights With Robust Data Hygiene
Even AI-powered insights are only as strong as the data underlying them. If you lack confidence in your data, can you really scale your investment strategy based on questionable insights?
One trend that panelists observed is a shift away from a “data at all costs” mentality, instead favoring standardized, structured and vetted data. Now that firms are prepared to accomplish more with this data, the need for data governance is stronger than ever–and can prevent the much-feared “AI hallucinations” that could, left unchecked, plague an otherwise sound investment decision.
Consistency, hygiene and methodology are key to instilling confidence and trust across your organization when it comes to acting on AI-powered insights.
See how to drive your investment strategy with trustworthy, AI-powered insights.
3. Attracting the Next Generation of World-Class Talent With Modern Tech
At the height of market activity in 2021, many firms struggled to attract and retain talent as they seized unprecedented opportunities to deploy capital. Now, even despite the present stage in the market cycle, competition for top talent remains fierce. While this problem is not unique to real estate, there are ways that firms can adapt to win the talent war.
Real estate’s historically slow adoption of technology means that many job seekers are hunting for tech-forward firms with robust data strategies. Automation reduces time spent on simple, tedious and manual tasks, creating more time to prioritize high-impact work and backtesting. Employees can better leverage proprietary information to inform decision making with data analytics, offering new opportunities to unleash and strengthen their analytical skills.
From attracting leading talent, to new opportunities for career development and improving employee satisfaction, market-leading technology is key to building and maintaining a high-performing team.
See how firms can win the talent war by pacing ahead of industry innovations.
4. Achieving a True Return on Data Investment
Unfortunately, many firms without a centralized database over-index on collecting data and under-index on analyzing it for decision making. Siloed data is a costly problem that can create process bottlenecks and obscure insights. Similarly, a deluge of data can prove equally as challenging as a shortage–and lacking proper hygiene, can quickly become overwhelming.
During the webinar, Greg Pennington, Manager, Customer Success, quantified the impact of poor data management. For many firms, this lack of clarity and operational inefficiency can lead to both lost transactions and missed critical dates or lost deposits.
Structured, formatted data based on industry best practices puts the most relevant and impactful data at your fingertips for ongoing analysis. Building a proprietary database of market comparables–based on standards aligned to your unique strategy–ensures that gleaning insights is efficient and scalable. The more users can dig into data points to understand the data’s context and origin, the stronger their conviction will be.
Centralizing data in a global database creates the guardrails your firm needs to avoid these costly errors. By ensuring that every decision is grounded in contextually rich data and you have oversight into every upcoming milestone, you can maximize your return on data investment.
See how your firm can maximize its return on data investment with a structured database.
5. Unlocking Data-Driven Precision With AI-Powered Scale
While AI might never replace a human decision maker, it’s already playing a pivotal role in aiding decision making. In the old real estate game, the proprietary market intelligence a firm could gather was limited by the bandwidth deal teams had to collect it. The advent of AI-powered data extraction tools like Dealpath’s AI Extract eliminated that barrier.
Greg Pennington discussed the transformative power of AI when it comes to amassing market intelligence. Because tools like AI Extract now enable firms to extract data from a flyer or OM within minutes, rather than hours, firms can tap into unlimited comparables while eliminating manual work. Armed with volumes of proprietary intelligence, professionals at all levels can more nimbly slice and dice data to draw powerful insights.
See how AI is setting a new standard for aggregating data intelligence.
6. Pairing a Proprietary Deals Database With Modern Risk Management Tools
The more market intelligence you have to contextualize your decision making, the better positioned you are to outperform competitors. But, that intelligence can only go so far when, in reality, market conditions can turn on a dime.
Comparing underwriting models to understand how a given deal might perform across financial scenarios is a powerful risk mitigation tool. By viewing deal performance across baseline, bull, bear, and extreme scenarios, you can validate that the deal will pencil and avoid costly missteps–even in the most challenging market conditions.
Layering this risk mitigation strategy together with your proprietary database of market intelligence offers all the context required to confidently make precise decisions.
See how firms are managing risk with granular visibility into performance across multiple scenarios.
7. Enforcing Data Governance as Transaction Activity Accelerates
A slowdown in activity often means that firms have the time and bandwidth to prioritize integrity. But, as transaction activity picks up, continued diligence when it comes to data integrity will yield dividends.
Ray Wong, Vice President, Data Solutions Delivery at Altus Group, underscored the importance of leveraging lessons learned–which can only be accurately captured with strong data governance. A sustained focus on data quality will prevent costly mistakes stemming from dated, miskeyed or otherwise inaccurate information. For some firms, data quality scorecards may be key for ensuring ongoing accountability.
See how strong data governance supports a nimble, scalable investment strategy.
Elevate Decision Making & Maximize Return On Data Investment In 2024
To learn even more about how you can fuel daily decisions and business strategy with centralized data, watch the webinar on-demand now.
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