Recent years have seen the development of a wide range of technological solutions enabling companies to enhance resilience, maintain stability, and ensure business and real estate continuity. However, the adoption of these digital tools has been gradual in some companies as they lacked the urgency or compelling reasons to alter their approach. However, COVID-19 has forced companies to adopt digital solutions at an unprecedented pace, with the outbreak appearing to be a catalyst for change.

In the retail sector, e-commerce has been critical to ensuring business survival, while in the office sector, cloud-based working tools and video-conference systems have facilitated remote and home-working. Various commercial real estate sectors have or are looking at utilizing virtual reality technology to conduct site visits and interior viewings, while artificial intelligence-enabled people-flow controls have been deployed by facilities management teams to monitor the body temperature of building visitors and mitigate the spread of the virus.

We look at some of the technologies that have been or can be utilized in the office, retail and logistics sectors and explain why they are likely to have long-term and far-reaching impact on the real estate industry.

Virtual Reality Platforms to Provide Building Tours and Inspections:

As visualising a built-out space without an on-site visit can be challenging – even when plans and renderings are available – potential tenants prefer to visit sites in-person to evaluate whether space is suited to their requirements. For occasions when this is not possible, there exists a range of 3D interactive tools with Virtual Reality (VR) technology enabling users to conduct virtual tours of potential sites to visualize how they might look in the real world.

Cloud-based systems for enterprise solutions to facilitate flexible working:

The COVID-19 outbreak has prompted the government and private sector in many countries like India to order or encourage employees to work from home in order to limit social contact. CBRE believes this largescale – and broadly successful – the trial will spur companies to be more willing to accelerate the adoption of flexible working policies in the future. While this may result in companies requiring less office space per employee in the long run, there will be stronger demand for higher quality space capable of encouraging collaboration, innovation, and employee well-being.

Cloud technology has played a key role in supporting remote working by connecting users with their enterprise databases and other online resources. Demand is projected to grow significantly in the coming years, with enterprises advised to enhance their cloud capacity to ensure business sustainability. This will also require an emphasis on security. Large corporations typically use Virtual Private Network (VPN) and multi-factor authentication technology to ensure access to data and systems is restricted to authorized employees.

Videoconferencing and project management tools to enable remote communication:

With many employees working from home or other remote locations, companies have deployed a range of technologies to help their staff facilitate communication, perform their day-to-day duties and attend virtual meetings.

The use of videoconferencing applications such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams has surged recently as users utilise these tools for remote office operations such as group discussions and client meetings. Zoom registered more than 2.22 million new monthly active users between January – February 2020, after adding just 1.99 million users in full-year of 2019.

Other project management apps that enable remote collaboration between teams and allow remote access to documents and folders include Microsoft 365 Suite etc and workflow management tools such have also seen rapid take-up. In addition, client relationship management and sales management software including Salesforce, etc and human resources management platforms have also started seeing traction.

The convenience offered by these technologies is helping us sustain business continuity during the COVID-19 outbreak, with companies set to continue relying on such tools even when business is back to normal.

CBRE believes growing demand for video-conferencing will compel occupiers to review their meeting room settings and force them to add more video conferencing equipment to facilitate remote communication across different office locations.

Security and people flow solutions to enhance property management:

Building security and people flow management has become more prominent in office, retail, and logistics properties since the COVID-19 outbreak, with property management teams taking steps to augment existing security and hygiene policies to reassure tenants and employees.

In the long run, building managers are likely to make greater use of data analytics tools to facilitate real-time decision making for emergencies and improve the efficiency of building management.

Live streaming to assist retail merchandising and corporate events:

Retailers will soon start using more creative ways to conduct online product merchandising. Live-streaming – an increasingly popular format combining entertainment and eCommerce – is helping retailers foster a “see now, buy now” culture across other markets enabling them to quickly inform consumers about their products and create a sense of urgency to purchase.

Increasing the use of automation to operate warehouses and distribution centers:

Logistics requirements have risen substantially since the COVID-19 outbreak due to the rapid growth of e-commerce sales, particularly for daily necessities and groceries. This has prompted warehouse and distribution center operators to accelerate the adoption of innovative technologies to reduce reliance on human employees and guard against the disruption of goods supply and shipping. Tools include robotics and AI-controlled automation systems in warehouses to fulfill inventory management, sortation, order picking, scheduling, and distribution.