Sensors that register what times of day a room is used, monitoring of a property's energy use in real time and digital "employees" who handle repetitive financial chores. These are some of the applications when Newsec Property Asset Management invests in automation in all its branches of management with the help of AI, RPA and digitization.
Property Management is both about being at the forefront of the development of technical solutions, but also about raising the minimum level of sometimes centuries-old buildings and bringing them into the smart city. Not all houses and buildings are adapted to the digital revolution and modern property management is very much about refining the history that is being managed.
“We are located in all Nordic and Baltic countries and can therefore take advantage of the innovation that is going on in each country”, says Björn Lindeborg, CEO of Newsec Property Asset Management Group.
In recent years, Newsec has intensified the work with digitization, both to streamline internal working methods and to make the properties "smarter". The pandemic has changed the way we move in public environments and many have worked from home during the year. Björn Lindeborg sees how the trends and demand in property management in recent years have accelerated during the Corona crisis.
“More people want to be able to quickly get information about what is happening in the properties and there is more talk about space as a service - to see physical surfaces as a service that more people can share”.
In the properties Newsec manages, tests of different types of sensors are carried out regularly. Sensors that indicate when it is time for maintenance of an elevator, which measures air quality or registers how a room is used at different times of the day. The latter can make it possible for more operations to share the same premises. For example, there are plans for a pilot project in a property that Newsec manages, where the large parking spaces in the office property can be used by residents on evenings and weekends - when the garage would otherwise have been empty.
There is also a lot going on in financial management. Several so-called RPA solutions are in development. RPA stands for Robotic Process Automation and it is a technology that enables digital workforce. A kind of digital "employee" is programmed according to a predetermined process and then uses the same system as a "regular" employee. Newsec already uses RPA today for posting preliminary taxes. In the past, financial assistants have had to spend a lot of time doing it manually, with the RPA solution it is enough to send an email every month, the system then produces a log where everything is completed.
“When this type of collection is automated and digitized, our employees can concentrate more on proactive and strategic work. People are needed when things need to be assessed and to make decisions - that is what we should spend time on”, says Björn Lindeborg.
Newsec is present in all Nordic and Baltic markets, and the Group's competence center shares what is happening in each country in the automation area.
“The smart city is about managing properties that was built before our time. We work extensively to think about how we can use our systems and their various applications in the best way to create value for Nordic property owners and tenants. Developments in RPA and AI are fast and there is great potential. The more development that takes place in the different countries, the more we and our customers can take part in”, says Björn Lindeborg.