SAVILLS ASSET MANAGEMENT

BACKGROUND

Savills is one of the world’s leading property agencies with more than 600 offices across the globe and over 160 years’ experience in buying, selling and renting properties ranging from industrial facilities to city centre offices, land sites and new homes.

In Australia, Savills offers a range of property services ranging from investment sales and leasing strategy to valuation, project management, occupier services and asset management across more than 450 assets covering over 3.3 million square metres of space.

In 1994, Savills became the first Australian business to implement MRI Software. The market-leading functionality and reporting was ground-breaking for the industry at the time, and Savills has since invested in migrating to a newer version of MRI with a new web user interface (UI).

Since 2008, Savills have worked with Loci Solutions to get the most out of the software applications they are licenced for including MRI, myBuildings and eConnect.

Most recently, Loci has been engaged to support Savills’ Asset Management division on a number of system initiatives to ensure consistent, streamlined processes and increased transparency and efficiencies across the business.

THE PROJECT

Working across office, retail and industrial assets, Savills Asset Management team provides customised consultancy in conjunction with performance reports to help landlords identify poorly performing assets and examine the options available to deliver the best outcomes for themselves and their tenants.

When David Watson was appointed to the role of National General Manager – Asset Management in late 2018, Savills needed to invest in the technology space. The business had fallen behind its competitors in terms of process efficiency, data analytics and transparency demanded by their clients.

A champion of innovation and technology, David quickly identified the need to invest in upgrading existing technology and implement faster, more cost-effective and agile solutions in order to reduce the management costs per property and tenancy for Savills’ multibillion-dollar portfolio.

“When you are changing the business, a project like this becomes not just about the IT piece but the broader change management aspect including internal processes, changing roles and responsibilities. Loci understand the business realities and key drivers behind what we are trying to do and have the language to get this across to the IT, finance and software teams to keep the project moving,” David said.

LOCI’S ROLE

Working as an extension of Savills’ internal IT and project management teams, Loci was engaged to guide and support the planning, execution and project management of the project. This included:

Improving the automation and accuracy of the accruals process
Providing a fresh and consistent image on outbound reporting outputs
Overseeing the automation of manual tasks
Upgrading the property management platform to the latest supported version.

Like most of Loci’s clients, one of David’s biggest frustrations has been getting internal stakeholders on the same page and speaking the same language.

THE SOLUTION

As problem-solvers, Loci have provided trusted guidance and support to help de-risk the project and reduce complexity. The solution provided to Savills has included the: