CIM drives financial and sustainability performance for LaSalle through digitised property operations

LaSalle Investment Management is keenly aware of the role that data and technology play in improving the operational efficiency of property portfolios and in turn, financial performance and sustainability. Partnering with CIM and leveraging the PEAK Platform has become a critical component of this and LaSalle’s driving mission: to deliver investment performance for a better tomorrow.

PEAK has digitised the operations at seven of LaSalle’s Australian properties across Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales, covering nearly 100,000 square metres of office and retail space. Since deployment in August 2021, LaSalle has leveraged CIM’s leading property operations platform to supercharge a collaborative workflow, enhance asset value, improve portfolio visibility and drive superior sustainability performance.

Partnership Highlights

• ‍7 office and retail assets, covering 98k sqm¹‍
• 303 actions raised, at a closure rate of 79%‍
• 33 stakeholders actively using the platform‍
• 1,976 pieces of equipment being monitored, including over 13k data points‍
• 84% indoor environment score, up from 71% in October 2021

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About LaSalle Investment Management

LaSalle believes in the value of dedicated focus and expertise, which is why they only invest in real estate, bringing a unique depth of experience to an often diversified sector. As an independent subsidiary of Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated, one of the largest real estate companies in the world, LaSalle boasts a presence in every region of the world in which they invest.

The size of its global footprint has positioned LaSalle as an industry leader, a responsibility the company’s senior leadership team takes seriously. In 2022 and beyond, their areas of focus include sustainability, active asset management, digitisation, and data-driven decision-making. They believe strongly in the power of ESG to enhance asset performance and are always on the lookout for opportunities to increase sustainability while supporting their core business goal of delivering real estate outcomes to investors. In partnering with CIM, LaSalle took a decisive step toward improving operational performance and contributing toward their net zero pathway strategy, a global focus across the business. 

Solid foundation, strong partnership

CIM has been a proud partner of LaSalle’s since August 2021, when the PEAK Platform was first onboarded at five offices and two retail centres. LaSalle had previously trialled alternative platforms, but has since selected CIM as their property operations provider of choice.

Since that time, the partnership has gone from strength to strength. Simon Howard, LaSalle’s Co-Head of Australia, described the platform as a “smart approach to building management that represents the way of the future” and the CIM team as “experts in their field, responsive and accommodating.”

Facilitating an Improved Workflow

33 unique individuals are actively working to improve LaSalle’s asset operations via the PEAK Platform, spanning Facilities Managers, specialist contractors and senior asset management team members. PEAK has identified more than 300 actions at a 79% ticket closure rate, leveraging the platform’s digital workflow functionality for accelerated completion of key tasks across the entire supply chain.

In this way, the platform has supercharged property operations across LaSalle’s portfolio, streamlining collaboration between team members. Issue identification and resolution now sit within a single shared workflow, improving accountability and efficiency. Property teams effortlessly assign Alerts to the correct team member. Once assigned, all team members are seamlessly collaborating in real-time to quickly and efficiently resolve issues.

Facilities Managers across LaSalle’s properties now have a workflow tool that is action-oriented and saves time, allowing them to keep pace with the everyday demands of their properties. Andrew Carroll of Colliers, Facilities Manager at LaSalle’s 323 Castlereagh Street, benefits from the end-to-end visibility and constant monitoring enabled by the platform:

“It’s great having a complete digital history of everyone’s comments, screenshots, photos and documents related to a particular issue, so I can keep on top of everything in the one place and avoid too much back-and-forth on email and follow-ups. I also appreciate the constant monitoring of base building equipment and energy consumptions to ensure the building is operating at its most efficient 24/7.”
- Andrew Carroll, Senior Facilities Manager, Colliers

Increasing Asset Value

Superior financial performance represents a direct outcome of improvements to the facilities management workflow. Operational efficiencies across the seven sites have facilitated an 18%² reduction in energy consumption compared to pre-COVID levels, from which LaSalle has derived significant cost savings.

More impressive still, these gains have been achieved without compromising the tenant experience. With all zones now being actively monitored for deviations to the ideal range, average indoor environment score increased by 13% to 84%³, and 22 actions were raised to improve indoor air quality.

“Tenant experience has always been critical, but it’s become even more critical since the pandemic as employers are trying to get their staff back to the office. So it’s important to create an environment that people want to come back and work in. We are committed to achieving net zero carbon without sacrificing the quality of the tenant experience.”
- Simon Howard, Co-Head of Australia, LaSalle

Importantly, these benefits have not taken long to come to fruition. This is critical given that investment management, by its very nature, prioritises speed to value. Any technology or enhancement initiative must yield direct financial benefits in a short space of time to support investor outcomes, and the PEAK Platform did not disappoint. Says Simon, “Value-add investing requires speed of execution. The way the PEAK Platform is set up, with simple connections that can be made straight away and the relationship we have with CIM, those things happen quickly. We get the data, the value-adding insights and the benefits from prompt resolution almost instantly”.

‍Enabling Multi-Asset Visibility

Much of LaSalle’s focus as an investment manager is around deciding where to allocate spend. This requires real-time access to data and insights that span the whole portfolio, so that more informed multi-asset decisions can be made. With the PEAK Platform, LaSalle’s senior executives have discovered an additional layer of data and portfolio-wide visibility to power more informed investment decisions. Simon told us,

“The reality is, despite having a collaborative team, that individual asset managers focus on their individual projects. PEAK allows the asset management team, as well as the senior leadership, to see things on a portfolio basis and ensure that learnings from one asset are applied across many. The data we get from the platform certainly informs our decisions, present and future.”
- Simon Howard, Co-Head of Australia, LaSalle

The platform paints a complete operational picture of LaSalle’s portfolio, by bringing together thousands of data sources. Nearly 2,000 pieces of equipment are being monitored across LaSalle’s seven sites, streaming close to 14,000 data points, governed by more than 3,000 rules. With constant intelligent monitoring to rely on, the operations team can maintain plant and equipment proactively and on a data-driven basis.

CIM’s structured, accessible data also fuels visibility among investors. In their 2022 Investment Strategy Annual Report, LaSalle cites the “increasing value of the capacity for advanced data analytics to guide real estate investment decisions”. Whether analysing operational efficiency or sustainability metrics, investors are increasingly interested in robust data outputs from portfolios where they invest capital. CIM’s data analytics tools allow LaSalle to quickly and easily demonstrate their performance.

Accelerating Sustainability Performance

Integrating sustainability into their processes and those of their clients is central to LaSalle’s approach. Therefore, their leadership was thrilled to see near-instant evidence that the PEAK Platform was driving them further along their net zero journey. Across the seven sites, they have reduced their annual energy consumption by 874 MWh compared to a 2019 baseline, or the approximate equivalent of 900 tonnes of carbon dioxide⁴. Some sites, like 380 Docklands, now consume an impressive 27% less energy when compared to pre-COVID levels⁵.

The platform has also helped to improve sustainability performance metrics. As an example, a recent refurbishment of the Transport House office site in Queensland prioritised sustainability initiatives, executing a NABERS Commitment Agreement. The building now boasts a 4.5 star NABERS Energy rating, an increase from zero stars and is 100% tenanted. Deployment of the PEAK Platform supported this transformation into a state-of-the-art sustainable workplace. As Emily Wills says,

“As part of the property's transformation, we are leveraging the PEAK Platform to drive operational efficiency through proactive management. We can monitor the data and uncover issues in real time, and then we have the people on-the ground who can proactively follow up.”⁶
- Emily Wills, Managing Director of Asset Management, LaSalle

Looking ahead

Moving into the future, CIM will continue to support LaSalle’s long-term strategic initiatives with our powerful property operations platform. Our teams are collaborating on strengthening engagement by on-site operational teams even further, driving greater progress with the tools and functionalities that make their work more impactful. CIM is proud to be a partner in LaSalle’s operational strategy, with our platform facilitating informed data-driven decision-making that propels their business forward. We are thankful to all stakeholders for embracing the platform across LaSalle’s portfolio, and we look forward to collaborating for further shared success.

Video case study

Hear from LaSalle's Simon Howard, Co-Head of Australia, and Emily Wills, Managing Director of Asset Management in this video case study. They share details of the thriving partnership with CIM and the exceptional results achieved since deployment of the PEAK Platform.

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Discover what CIM can do for your property or portfolio. Request a callback from our experts today.

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Endnotes:

1. Net Lettable Area
2. As of 30 June 2022
3. between October 2021 and April 2022. Source: PEAK Platform’s Indoor Environment module. Thermal comfort = Daily sum of ideal zone temperature readings / Daily total zone temperature readings.
4. Approximate estimate. Source: Australian Government - Department of the Environment and Energy
5. Compares consumption during pre-COVID baseline period of March 2019 to February 2020, with consumption in the 12 months to September 2022
6.  Source: Case study: Transport House, Fortitude Valley QLD