United States-headquartered real estate professional services major Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) opened its first ever Centre of Expertise (CoE) in the world at Bengaluru. The centre would play a significant role, and would focus on globalising all its products and services. The CoE will also be managing all the products and services of the company remotely. The centre will be leveraging data analytics, machine learning (ML) and Internet of Things (IoT) to develop and manage the company’s products and services.
Initially, the centre would employ around 150 people and the number can be scaled up to 300 people in the future, depending on the business requirements of the company. JLL manages around 4 billion square feet of real estate space globally. It employs around 88,000 people across 80 countries. It is also the largest real estate services firm in India with more than 10,000 people and a revenue of over Rs 3,400 crores.
The CoE is spread over 20,000 square feet in Bengaluru and as visitors enter the office, a humanoid robot greets them and provide them with relevant information. The new centre has focus pods, collaboration lounges and relaxation spaces, and integrates smart technology such as Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE) projections allowing its teams to utilise an immersive virtual reality environment for research, design and analysis. The global centre is being termed as one of the unique centres in India for property technology (“PropTech”). The centre will also serve as a liquid lab to architects, to build and test advanced digital products to support the company’s customers.
Apparently, the inauguration of the CoE is one among JLL's latest initiatives under the company's ongoing digital transformation alongside strategic acquisitions, appointment of Silicon Valley leader Vinay Goel as its chief digital product officer and also launching JLL Spark, a global division dedicated to identifying and delivering new technology driven offerings in the real estate sector.
“We have been designing real estate solutions to solve the problems in the real estate segment. We always aim at enriching our client’s experience so that they are able to get quick information and are able to take faster decisions. For instance, there are different data points that come from a building such as space utilisation, speed of a lift that can very well be used for another building of a similar type. We can use data analytics and use such information for a customer occupying a similar building elsewhere. The centre will also be working on solutions that can help customers take decisions on occupying buildings without actually going there. Through this, our customers are able to take decisions based on the virtual showcase which will be similar to a physical presence. Broad focus of this centre will be on technologies such as data analytics, technology design, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, virtual reality and other emerging technologies. We have also hired specialised data scientist for this centre who would be working on predictive analytics too. Sitting remotely, our staff from this centre will be effectively be able to handle almost all our global customers,” Anthony Couse, CEO, Asia Pacific, JLL told THE WEEK.
