Blackrock MD insight: the game-changing trick to automate Tenancy Schedule imports

When a leading player in the commercial real estate (CRE) industry like BlackRock speaks, the industry listens. In the past week a BlackRock MD has highlighted the game-changing potential of the Microsoft Excel ‘Data-From-Picture’ feature. His enthusiasm and the positive reactions from fellow investors, JV Partners and brokers (e.g. from CBRE UK et al.) and advisors underscores a significant shift towards embracing technology and a clear willingness to streamline manual processes that bedevil daily tasks. Here’s a closer look at how automating tenancy schedule imports can reclaim time, boost productivity, and deliver substantial financial benefits – to the tune of ￡3m of opportunity costs.

Reclaiming Time: The Financial Impact of Automating Tenancy Schedules

In today’s fast-paced Commercial Real Estate industry, every minute counts. Not because real estate deals happen quickly, but because every team is resource-constrained, working hard to uncover opportunities, navigating unprecedented post-lockdown trends, and maximising AUM alongside the usual diary stacked with regular meetings and quarterly reporting.

Yet, many institutions are still bogged down by manual labour processes that consume valuable time and expensive resources. Here’s a closer look at how technology, particularly Dashflow’s complimentary import tool, can transform these tasks, reclaim time, and deliver substantial financial benefits.

Breaking Through Skepticism

When we first demonstrated our tenancy schedule import automation tool 6 years ago, a senior City of London FTSE Financial Director exclaimed that our demo must be a fraud! It took open minds, collaboration, and frank discussion to ultimately bring on board a fantastic Client that saw the immense value of tech in streamlining manual processes.

This skepticism wasn’t isolated; it was a sentiment shared by even notable and forward-thinking Proptech Venture Capitalists. They couldn’t fathom how a tiny iPhone could handle tasks they believed must require manual typing on a QWERTY desktop keyboard. Not even technology VCs had recognised how easy importing rentrolls has become.

The Reality of Manual Tenancy Schedules

Let’s face it: manually inputting tenancy schedules is tedious and time-consuming. For some institutional clients, typing up, cross-checking, and formatting a large 2-page schedule can take the best part of 3-5 hours among typical workplace distractions. Even when work is barely interrupted, handling a few manually inputted rent rolls each month can still eat up 30+ mins and up to an hour per vanilla tenancy schedule. After speaking to professionals over the past 8 years: reviewing, typing-up and double-checking detailed tenancy schedules with comments can consume around at least 20 mins per 5 tenants.

A Positive Shift: Geoffrey Shaw’s Insight

Blackrock’s MD Geoffrey Shaw’s recent post (see below) about the Microsoft Excel ‘Data From Picture’ feature highlights a significant shift in how large firms view technology. His enthusiasm for discovering this feature resonated with users and followers, garnering positive reactions from some of the largest firms in our industry. Best of all, it represents innovation "in plain sight". You don't need an innovation committee or IT departments to add their ten cents of approval delays.

This post and the reactions are a testament to the delight users experience when they realise how much time and effort can be saved each day they are at their desktop encountering a similar issue. More importantly, when larger brands like BlackRock accept that change is possible, it sends a powerful message to other established brands, encouraging them to embrace technological change.

The Eye-Opening Business Case

Beyond any personal time reclaimed, it is instructive to look at the higher business case available to the team:

• 70-100 Working Days lost annually: In a major office branch handling only 10 property schedules per month, the cumulative time spent on these tasks can equate to an astonishing 70-100 working days lost each year. This is a significant loss of productive time that could be redirected towards more strategic activities, finding deals, meeting investors or even paying for better client marketing events at the Rugby 7s or charity volunteering for LandAid.
• ￡30,000 Opportunity Cost: Leaving aside MD salaries, average institutional Associate or VP level employees means that the opportunity cost of these lost days is in excess of ￡30,000 annually. This is based on the time that could have otherwise spent on higher-value tasks.
• ￡60,000 Since 2022: Since Microsoft launched the ‘Data From Picture’ feature in 2022, the opportunity cost doubles to ￡60,000 for those that remain unaware of the excellent feature. This highlights the real financial impact of not adopting new technologies promptly. While institutions may not wish to adopt a Start-up's innovative product on Day-1, there is really no reason for an institution to avoid Microsoft Excel sitting installed and paid for across the globe.
• ￡180,000 Over Six Years: Dashflow introduced a complimentary import tool and an Optical Character Recognition solution for clients in select CRE teams at M&G Investments and Colliers six years ago. The cumulative opportunity cost savings reaches ￡180,000 if not used over that time.
• ￡2.8 Million ROI: By implementing this efficiency improvement across 210 professionals in 16 offices, the potential tech ROI could be as high as ￡2.8 million. This explains why Blackstone and Revantage, A Blackstone Portfolio Company are tracking and adopting technologies to avoid these manual bumps in the road for CRE execs. They realise that all their portfolio companies can benefit from Revantage-approved solutions, and that tech is a stealth boost for both investment returns and team performance.

Don’t leave tech to ma?ana, achieve it today.

The adoption of technology in Commercial Real Estate isn’t just about convenience; it’s about making a tangible impact on the bottom line and the way precious time is spent on behalf of investors and pension funds.

By reclaiming time spent on manual data entry ––just one part of what can be automated during the complex human-dependent task of underwriting investment appraisals––, professionals can focus on more strategic, value-added tasks that require expert human judgement which no large language model can replace.

The difference between discovering these tools today versus six years ago makes an arguable case for millions in opportunity cost savings, and investing exceptionally little time to create a competitive edge and continued ability to remain one step ahead of the slower-to-adopt competition.

To conclude, early adoption of automation tools like Dashflow can reclaim valuable time, improve productivity, and -more importantly- raise team morale. As per Geoffrey's shared frustration, many cannot count the "hours wasted". Don’t wait another six years to make this transformation. 2024 is full of opportunity to future-proof your organisation today. The future of efficient workflow management is already here in spades, and it’s time to embrace it and lead your team towards today’s practical and value-added possibilities.

Further reading:

? Stay-tuned to relevant online resources: while many Excel functions and constantly new releases are not relevant, people like Steve Kraynak at 微软 blog about the tools you should know about as an institutional professional.

? For a deep dive into the business risks of clever Optical Character Recognition (OCR), check out Office Watch for a 3rd party opinion: https://office-watch.com/2022/big-weakness-excel-data-from-picture/

? For a selection of articles on OCR approaches, go here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/ocr-extraction/914c0514-ce79-4d78-8520-c38d1daa2274