The world of work is changing. As disruption and uncertainty become the new status quo, smart companies will transform their workplaces to be agile and adaptable to ever changing economic, societal and technological realities. Executives will improve their workplaces to serve as the center of innovation and create experience-rich environments that help attract and retain talent. Kawalpreet Singh, Director & Head – Corporate Solutions Marketing at JLL India Pvt. Ltd. details the benefits of using location technology and data-driven analysis in corporate real estate
My first job was with HDFC Bank as a manager. I was responsible for managing key accounts and strengthening relationships with the decision makers and senior management in target organizations.
But what left a profound impact on my career was my second job with Infosys in their research and analytics practice. I was lucky to work with a talented bunch of people and learnt a lot on various industries and work functions. I also worked with multiple virtual teams to design solutions, prepare marketing collaterals, develop thought papers, build domain intensive capabilities and to provide high end research and analytics solutions to potential clients. The experience was tremendous.
I have been lucky to have fantastic mentors in all my organizations.that I have worked with. These smart, dynamic individuals have helped shape my career to a large extent. The feedback that I have sought ranged from workplace, professional growth, personal development and life in general.
I did my schooling in St. Dominic Savio College in Lucknow. After which I pursued B.E. (Elec. & Comm.) from G.N.D. Engg. College, V.T.U. I also completed my Masters Programmers in International Business from the Symbiosis Institute of International Business in Pune.
My current role in JLL is Director of Marketing for Corporate Solutions Businesses. We help organizations.for all their requirements across the complete real estate lifecycle. JLL is a Fortune 500 company with annual revenue of $16.3 billion, operations in over 80 countries and a global workforce of over 90,000.
JLL India has an extensive presence across 10 major cities (Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Bangalore, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Kochi and Coimbatore) and over 130 tier II and III markets with a cumulative strength of close to 11,000 professionals. We provide investors, developers, local corporate and multinational companies with a comprehensive range of services. This includes leasing, capital markets, research and advisory, transaction management, project development, facility management, property and asset management.
The objective is to provide end to end services to improve workplace experience ranging from finding office spaces, build and fit out as well as manage your property portfolio. As director of marketing, I am responsible for driving marketing strategy, communication and campaign implementations.
Remember life before GPS? I remember every time we used to take a vacation, my dad used to purchase detailed city maps from railway or bus stations as the case may be, to navigate and find city landmarks, places to eat and so much more. Today, it’s so hard to even imagine how we even managed to find our way around without these technology enablers.
From an organisation’s perspective, a few years from now, businesses will be asking the same question - remember business intelligence before location analytics, when we had to go through rows and rows of unit dimensional data and try and get valuable insights? Location and timing give that extra dimension to the existing data within an organisation.
Today, we have in excess of 15 billion connected devices which will grow to over 30 billion in the next two years, driving an economic value of more than $11 trillion by 2025. Yet nearly 90% of the data will go unused. It is estimated that 70% of all data has a location component. What will help organizations.differentiate is understanding of this data.
Location analytics has the power to affect a variety of businesses ranging from insurance, to retail, aviation to energy and utilities across sales and marketing, supply chain, operations, etc. For example, combining location data with existing business data can improve decision-making and create opportunities for businesses. This data can tell you what customers will buy and when, where and how will they shop etc. There are several use cases where location data has enriched the business intelligence, but none as compelling as real estate and marketing.
Combining location data with existing business data can improve decision-making and create opportunities for businesses. This data can tell you customer’s habits
Real estate, traditionally, has been an intuition driven industry, a business where real value comes from location, insight and timing. By combining geo spatial methods with traditional proprietary real estate knowledge, we help deliver value to our clients. While at the first glance, one would imagine that the use cases of location data in real estate are the traditional instances of site selection, investment analysis, etc. However, a lot of forward looking organizations.today, are going beyond this realm and using this data to positively impact two critical components of their workplace – space planning and employee experience.
Last year, we launched IDEA Lab – our proptech incubation cell to tap into the ecosystem of startups and vendor partners and to bring the best of technology applications, tools and solutions with an aim to drive client experience and productivity. Today, IDEA Lab is working with companies with cutting edge technology solutions for workplaces in the realm of Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, robotics, chatbots, machine learning, predictive analytics, etc., that have current or future applications in the space our clients operate in.
A use case of location analytics in a real estate scenario is in finding a flexi space based on location. For e.g. in a central business district like Bandra-Kurla Complex, an individual looking for a flexible working space for a few hours, based on location sensing, could get a list of shared workplaces and resources which one could book instantly. This gives an entirely new dimension to real estate services on the go. location technology not only helps in outside the building but also the workplaces inside. JLL for example, recently did a pilot in one of its regional offices where the employees wore a sensor on their i-cards or in the form of wearableinside the office. What this sensor did was it tracked the employee’s movement within the office helping us analyze the heat maps of space being utilized in the office, who are the employees interacting with and with the wearable tracking the pulse/ heartbeat, we were even able to get a sense of the nature of interactions and the effect on employee wellness.
Today, location based sensors are helping organizations.across businesses get insights on space planning, tracking employee transport with a focus on safety and security, meeting room bookings, hot-desking, cafeteria utilization and so on and so forth.
Yes. Advanced technologies like artificial intelligence will enable companies to reinvent their business models and unlock new sources of growth. To successfully navigate these changes, organizations.must explore and adopt digitization that will enhance people and enterprise performance.
The world of work is changing. As disruption and uncertainty become the new status quo, smart companies will transform their workplaces to be agile and adaptable to ever changing economic, societal and technological realities. Executives will improve their workplaces to serve as the center of innovation and create experience-rich environments that help attract and retain talent.
In a nutshell, these are exciting times. Tech innovations are creating more flexible and agile workplaces and the journey has just begun.
By Orchie Bandyopadhyay
