Please tell us about PATRIZIA
PATRIZIA AG is a leading partner for global real assets with more than EUR 47bn assets under management. The company was founded in 1984 and has currently has 24 offices globally with more than 800 employees.
Digital solutions and innovations are key to our strategy and we believe that introducing the very latest technology is crucial in ensuring we remain relevant.
What is your role at PATRIZIA?
I am spearheading a five-year programme of digitalisation across the group, which is helping people to adopt more modern ways of working through a more agile approach.
We have centralised all our projects and the whole technical element across the company is now harmonised.
To sum up, together with my team, we run all operations to power our one-stop-service platform – our ‘Engine Room’.
How is PATRIZIA organised digitally?
Our Engine Room is at the heart of PATRIZIA. This is a system that is divided into Fund Services, Asset Services and Portfolio Services which is at the centre of our organisation.
Fund Services covers end-to-end administration of our funds, special purpose vehicle management, real estate and purchase evaluation and accounting.
Asset Services covers asset reporting, budgeting and onboarding.
Portfolio Services covers investor reporting, fund planning and portfolio analysis.
What are the benefits of this approach?
The Engine Room allows us to interface successfully with our property managers and other partners, but above all it is there to benefit our customers.
For example, PATRIZIA customers receive best-in-class reporting: during the lockdown we did the first digital annual meeting of our retail funds.
Our investor portal ‘myPATRIZIA’ is very popular: our investors really appreciate us reporting in the most efficient way, through an automated interface. Reducing manual work has been crucial for our colleagues.
Next, we want to add more information and analysis on our ESG performance.
How has COVID-19 affected your digital operations?
We were ready to work remotely overnight and supported people in a generic way. We had introduced an online collaboration tool which meant that colleagues could all work together effectively and immediately.
What is the future for real estate digitally?
Real estate is really not in a good place regarding digitalisation.
Processes are not clear and, overall, the sector needs to get more digitalised and more automated.
We will see a complete change in the next 10 years, with more seamless data and data-driven workflows and more standardisation.
We won’t see advisers sending bespoke documents, for example.
We really feel challenged by getting this done. By better use of data you will see a whole improvement in the operation of properties and their ESG performance as well.
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