KPMG and Planon have entered a partnership to extend cooperation to support organizations looking to digitize the process of leasing real estate and portfolio management.
Over the past two years, the firms have been working together on helping companies to comply with IFRS 16 standards by implementing Planon’s Lease Accounting solution across Europe.
The new partnership will allow organizations to achieve a stronger ‘end-to-end transformation’ from lease accounting towards strategic portfolio management.
The combination of Planon’s software solutions with KPMG’s knowledge around process optimization and performance improvements will enable building owners and users to plan and execute a smart portfolio management strategy, using innovative technologies.
Gerben de Roest, Partner at KPMG Enterprise Solutions, said, “I am very happy that we have found a global software provider that helps building owners and occupiers to streamline business processes for buildings, people and workplaces and that puts innovation first. I am looking forward to continuing our successful collaboration by helping our mutual and new clients to get the most value out of their Planon investments, by providing value added expertise and controlled implementation of Planon solutions and related technology.”
Pierre Guelen, CEO and founder of the Planon Group said, “Planon is looking forward to strengthening its cooperation with this Big Four organization. KPMG has a solid long-term vision and a large ambition in the field of digitalization of real estate operations and related technologies such as smart buildings and PropTech. Its knowledge of process optimization and change management from both a strategic planning and operational implementation point of view is a great combination with Planon’s market-leading software solutions.”
Sander Grunewald, Partner at KPMG Real Estate Advisory, added, “Many of our corporate clients are looking to embrace the opportunities that technology brings. We aim to support them in gaining the full potential from digital and innovative technology. Planon is one of the established technology providers in this domain that can fulfill a bridging role to connect the technology solutions and bring additional value to the corporate clients.
KPMG is very active in the smart building segment with projects involving innovative technologies such as IoT and 5G.
“From an IoT perspective, you’re not going to have smart buildings without IoT. IoT is really going to enable the entire ecosystem to create the actual smart building, so if you think about all the IoT type sensors that we deploy, the Building Management System (BMS ) is technically an extension of IoT capabilities,” Greg Corlis, managing director for emerging technologies and national IoT leader at KPMG US, told In-Building Tech. “We’re starting to see a significant uptick in clients asking to move forward with smart building initiatives. Definitely any new building that is being built needs to be built from the ground up as a smart building. It does not make sense not to leverage IoT-type technologies for that facility. Just trying to go the traditional route and not embedding these types of technologies doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Corlis said.
Corlis considers that building managers and building owners still have to learn about the full potential of technologies such as 5G, IoT or AI and how these can be used to improve buildings operations. “I think a lot of buildings operations companies are being approached by different suppliers, with point solutions. I’d say they’re all starting to look at it. But trying to understand which technologies make the most sense for their facilities is a challenge.
RCR Wireless News recently published a report dubbed “AI, 5G and IoT: Smart buildings in 2020 and beyond,” explaining how the combination of the 5G, AI and IoT will allow for real-time data collection and analysis that will make buildings more efficient and more user-friendly. You can access the report by clicking here.
