Technology Is Driving an Industry Talent Gap

Today, with the integration of technology into the commercial real estate industry, brokerage has transitioned from a purely transactional business to a consultative model. As such, brokers are diving into a client’s business model and leveraging technology tools and data to guide decisions that make the most strategic and economic sense, whether on a lease deal of investment. A CBRE tenant rep team in Denver led by Anthony Albanese and Nicholas Weld has evolved to incorporate more technology to better serve its clients.

“The online visibility into currently available space has increased significantly, which has caused us to fully expand our service from primarily transactional—market options, financial modeling, negotiation, document review—to a consultative approach in which we are fully diving into our clients’ business models and then working to select real estate that best fits,” Albanese, an SVP at CBRE, tells GlobeSt.com. “We have had to develop our internal research and technology as well to capture and synthesize data.”

As technology becomes more commonplace, Albanese has witnessed a growing industry talent gap. “There is an industry talent gap in those who have adapted to the new service offering,” he says. “Given our consultative approach, we are producing optimal client outcomes, [a strategy that] has led to a dominant market share position in Downtown Denver.”

For the team—which includes Becky Croak, Kirsty Stevenson and new additions Will Hightower and Andrew Swetnam—leveraging technology has helped to increase market share as well as repeat business from clients looking for the same service and consistency across their portfolio. “Our clients are requesting that we work with them in all their locations across the globe to ensure consistency in service,” explains Albanese. “Subsequently, we are having to scale our team with quality individuals who are trained to “do things the right way” and deliver on our diligent service, in Denver and beyond. As such, we have formed a highly efficient team of individuals who play specialized rolls. This ensures that we are providing solutions to our clients that have been vetted through multiple perspectives and areas of expertise, in addition to market knowledge.”

With these successes more and more brokerage companies are investing in technologies to support client needs. CBRE, for one, has developed several tools for brokers, including programs like Econometric Advisors for investments and a portfolio optimizer for centrally housing information that can be accessed by the client nearly anywhere in the world that has Internet connectivity.

In building a team, however, comes down to a personal relationship with the client and in the industry. The technology part, says Albanese, can be taught. “If they are emotionally invested personally in the work product that they produce, nearly everything beyond that can be coached and/or supported by other teammates’ strengths.”