Corporate real estate leaders around the world are beginning to offer their employees a powerful new tool: the workplace experience app.
Recently, our CEO and CoFounder Andrew Krioukov was invited by RealComm to speak on a workplace experience panel at CoRE TECH, an intimate gathering of the most forward-thinking corporate real estate leaders from Microsoft, Google, Intel, Coca-Cola, Deutsche Bank, and more. Andrew shared the stage with McDonald’s, LinkedIn, CBRE, and Teem to discuss how our organizations are leading the charge and shaping what it means to offer your employees a workplace experience app today.
Here are some highlights of what everyone was talking about at CoRE TECH and an insider-look at what top companies are doing to stay ahead of the curve.
Mobile-first, intelligent, and anticipatory workplace tech is the key to workplace productivity
The most successful corporate real estate executives are ones who are strategic contributors to their business. As Comfy CEO Andrew Krioukov explained, “Every successful company is concerned with attracting and retaining employees, encouraging collaboration, and improving productivity. Comfy plays directly into these goals by creating the environment for people to do their best work.” Andrew described a Comfy-enabled building. From suggesting the nearest available conference room to automatically applying temperature and lighting preferences, Comfy is creating a workplace that provides contextual data and anticipates employee needs.
This aspiration for an intelligent workplace experience was echoed throughout the event. Samantha Fisher of Capital One, for example, described a future workplace full of “predictiveness and automation” — a workplace where “activities that people need to take everyday will happen for them automatically.”
It is clear that forward-thinking corporate real estate executives are hooked and intelligent workplace experiences will soon be the new norm.
Data collection can be a minefield or an opportunity
There is no shortage of ways to collect data about the building and how people are using it. IoT Smart Building Program Director, and Comfy client, Srini Khandavilli of Intel knows this better than most. He led the creation of Intel’s first IoT-enabled smart building in Bangalore, India. The 10-story, 630,000 sqft office building is outfitted with 9,000 sensors collecting real-time data 24/7 on temperature, lighting, energy consumption, and occupancy. Srini cautions: “It is so easy to be inundated with data coming in from sensors. If you don’t have a good strategy around that, you are going to look like you’re doing a science experiment.”
Our advice: work with trusted advisors to develop a strategy that garners actionable insights and uses data to optimize the experience for employees. At Comfy, we see firsthand how pairing a workplace experience app with occupancy sensor data provides clearer insight into how people are actually using the space—and turns data into action.
Engage with your IT team early, and partner with solution providers who speak their language
The conversation around breaking down silos and working cross-departmentally is not new. However, it was exciting to hear from corporate real estate executives who are doing it effectively. Jared Summers, Data, Analytics & Technology Manager at ExxonMobil reminded the CoRE Tech audience that for most organizations when the real estate team rolls out a workplace experience app, they are asking IT to do something very different from their day-to-day. For example, in many cases, wireless access points are fundamentally different from what the network was originally designed to do.
The solution? CoRETech attendees were unanimous in the importance of engaging with IT early and working together to build a digital strategy.
We would take it one step further and say, as you choose a workplace experience app provider, choose a partner with a strong understanding of existing digital workplace systems. You want someone who understands your goals as a corporate real estate executive AND has a proven track record of developing and deploying software for enterprise-level clients. Request information about how they integrate with existing systems and documentation about their security practices. Your IT team will thank you.
Thanks to RealComm for organizing another terrific CoRETech event, and to all the corporate real estate leaders for the thought-provoking conversations. Exciting times! If you weren’t able to catch up with a Comfy rep, be sure to chat with us today.
