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Do you know how many people watched Stranger Things (Season 4A) in 3 days? No? Neither do I. But Netflix says it was watched for 287 million hours in 3 days. How did it become an international hit? Probably because of the tech you never see.

In late 2009, Avatar started a trend – of making movie watching an experience. IMAX, 3D, Performance capture. It had everything. I’d even say it inspired the Marvel films to spend millions on eye-popping visual effects. Thor’s hammer, Ant-Man’s size changes, Wanda’s city-shaking heroics – All visual effects made by a computer program we never see.

When we talk about tech – everyone thinks of iPads, TVs, laptops and the like. Hardware. The most common thing I hear is “Look at that screen!”. Sure, your HDR display is great. But a TV is nothing without content, much like a laptop without apps or an iPad without an OS.

Cynics can ask the question – Is India really on a tech drive? Like most macro questions – it's debatable. But honestly, I think we are. After the initial hiccups with the Aarogya Setu app, eventually India has rolled out nearly 2 billion doses. When your dose is done – you can download a certificate from the App (The US had handwritten paper ones). Fastag is widely implemented to pay tolls on highways. There are still some traffic jams, but they would be a lot worse without Fastags. Today the terms “Zomato It” or “Swiggy It” have given rise to not just digital services but platforms.

If you've made it so far in this piece, you're probably wondering sure tech has made all of our lives a lot easier - I couldn't survive without the iPhone in my pocket - but what does all of this have to do with real estate? And the answer is simpler than it seems. Real estate requires the power of tech to make it work more efficiently. Let me give you a very interesting example of this throughout the phases of the real estate lifecycle.

Any real estate journey starts with a plot of land, or does it? Today the journey starts with analytics. You identify your key micro markets, followed by a thorough analysis of future-oriented demand based on multiple parameters which cannot be done on excel or through any other platform except with some level of AI and machine learning. After that, you identify all the lands available and which one best suits your need. And then you eventually get down to the construction phase. Now it should be all too apparent that construction requires high-tech machinery which has existed for years. Let's go back again. What if before you constructed anything or laid a single brick you could 3D print out a model of what the output would look like? Companies like L&T Have gone one step further using 3D printing to develop a two-storey NBC compliant building in just 106 hours. And there are plenty more examples when it comes to construction. Drones are being used to monitor progress on construction sites. Now some of you may say that this is primarily a safety directive and there are others who will argue in favor of enhanced productivity, but whatever your reasoning is, there's no doubt that they're making a substantial impact in reducing costs and timelines on major construction projects.

Now that your building is ready you've got to be able to sell it. And to do this not only will you need human intervention which is all your third-party vendors and suppliers or what you'd call your channel partners, but you'll need them to do it in a way that is efficient. What this means to me is that a partner who leverages technology will have an edge over everyone else. Let's say that your project is competing against multiple others in the same micro-market, but you want to show visually that it's much more accessible via public transport and built with far better construction quality. You can do both with tech - running live commute analysis and potential Seismic audits based on the design. And there you go – the building just got occupied.

Now that the occupier has come into the space, he or she wants to know how efficiently it's being utilized. So they engage a vendor to come in and set up sensors to actively track how much space is being used during what time of the day and how it can be done in a much more efficient and effective manner. Moreover, it helps you redirect your resources. For example, if employees are much more focused on using collaborative spaces when they come into the office, that insight enables you to set up more immediate collaborative spaces which is to say desks that double up or rather double down as partition-less immediate meeting spaces.

Let us also not forget that India is now home to 102 unicorns. That's an amazing accomplishment and the most important piece is that these unicorns are largely tech-based. Why did I use the word tech-based rather than tech-firms? Tech-based is the world we live in, you use tech to solve your problems, while acknowledging that it is a part of the ecosystem not the entire ecosystem in and of itself. For example, many prop-tech firms provide you with the platform to buy and sell homes online. They've also branched out into commercial real estate. They are amongst the first to admit the tech makes everybody’s lives easier, but it doesn't cut out the middlemen who are required for physical site visits and inspections and will continue to be required even in the event that virtual walkthroughs start gaining steam.

So what does great tech really translate to? Essentially, tech that makes itself invisible while accomplishing its desired outcomes is a great tech. Let me explain come on today you don't really want to know our building was constructed faster or how your employer was able to decide to set up more collaborative spaces or redesign the office in a specific manner come on you're happy when it just happens. And that's what great tech is, it doesn't make you feel like you're working on a cumbersome operating system - it just works. In fact, do you know who's been generating great tech for the last 20 odd years? Apple.

If you watched Apple's WWDC at the beginning of June, you would realize that the way they've designed their products is dramatically different from everybody else. To give you a very succinct example when they spoke of the iOS updates, the focus, or at least a very large part of it, was who's on the home screen and being able to customize it to look and feel the way you want it to. There's great tech that goes into delivering that kind of experience the same way there's great tech that goes into connecting all the devices and ecosystems whether it's iOS iPad OS or Mac OS together but you don't see it as a user in the end. All I'll say and comment on is that the experience is phenomenal. Now of course Apple is B2C. However, B2B companies that are founded and develop products with that mentality of putting the customer experience at the forefront will see much more success than their peers. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they lead India to become one of the most favorable tech hubs in the world.

And because I always ask people what are your predictions for the future? I can't conclude this article without stating my own. No independent function whether it's AI ML, SaaS or anything else is the future in and of itself, it's a combination of all of them. So the winners much like in life, will be the friendliest companies: those who want to work with everyone else and build out a platform and an ecosystem.

-  Arshish Kavarana, Senior Director, Head of Occupier Consulting and Digital Initiatives, Colliers India


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Colliers India
Sukanya Dasgupta, Head Marketing and Communications - sukanya.dasgupta@colliers.com

Colliers (NASDAQ, TSX: CIGI) is a leading diversified professional services and investment management company. With operations in 66 countries, our 18,000 enterprising professionals work collaboratively to provide expert real estate and investment advice to clients. For more than 28 years, our experienced leadership with significant inside ownership has delivered compound annual investment returns of approximately 20% for shareholders. With annual revenues of $4.5 billion and $98 billion of assets under management, Colliers maximizes the potential of property and real assets to accelerate the success of our clients, our investors, and our people. Learn more at corporate.colliers.com, Twitter @Colliers or LinkedIn.

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