Tech X-Ray: Examining your real estate tech

How leading firms budget for their tech stacks

Key Highlights

• Budget allocation: To support an adequate technology stack for its corporate real estate (CRE) capabilities, a Fortune 500 (F500) company spends around $13 million annually on real estate technology, equating to $1 per square foot of property portfolio. Half of this spend goes towards operational insights, facilities management and occupancy management.
• Tech stack budget breakdown: 52% of the budget goes to software, 15% to hardware, 27% to sustainment and 6% to enhancement. This distribution is designed to support broader business objectives like cost control, talent retention and risk mitigation.
• Hidden costs: Up to 20% of costs in a typical F500 CRE tech stack are “unknown,” often in the form of duplicated functionality, unused software licenses and inefficient use of staff time. Explore how to eliminate friction in a tech budget.

Seeing through to the core issues

Collaborating with subject matter experts who work with clients across the real estate technology spectrum, JLL Technology Advisory created the X-Ray framework to benchmark cost distribution of an average F500 CRE tech budget. This framework is based on a representative firm, our capability model for real estate, along with aggregated insights on real estate budgets from a variety of clients. With these factors incorporated, the X-Ray shows how the volume and distribution of spend correlates with the complexity and value of the corresponding business process.

Leaders in CRE, Finance and IT can use the X-Ray report in three ways:

1. Kickstart an informed discussion on the importance of mapping your CRE technology budget/spend
2. Pinpoint hidden spend or embedded technical debt and opportunities for rationalization
3. Realign tech spend to better align with business objectives

Review the full CRE Tech X-Ray report to learn more.