Industry thought-leaders continue to innovate approaches that shape the fast-evolving Philippine real estate market. The presence of forums such as JLL’s Asia Real Estate Summit gives leaders the platform to share future-ready ideas that will prepare organizations in the years to come.
The Asia CEO’s Real Estate Summit is an annual gathering of industry movers that sets innovative standards of real estate excellence. For the past years, the Asia CEO’s Real Estate Summit has been successful through the participation of leaders and innovators who have shared best practices in their respective industries.
This year, the theme for Asia CEO’s Real Estate Summit is “REvolution Real Estate” with a strong focus on how technology disrupts the traditional real estate approaches. The Asia CEO’s Real Estate Summit 2019 highlights how important it is to convene and discuss as one real estate community various strategies that will further the country’s real estate industry.
The Asia CEO Real Estate Summit 2019 was an opportunity for participants to gain insight on the current and future of real estate landscape, particularly the rise of smart cities, the growing demands for co-living and co-working spaces, and other innovative approaches in creating a future-ready real estate industry through the use of ‘PropTech’ or Property Technology.
JLL Asia Pacific Director for Solutions Development, Ian Chadsey, opened the Real Estate Summit 2019 with a banner presentation on “Transforming Real Estate through the Rise of Smart Cities”. Ian Chadsey highlights how information and communication technology (ICT) take a crucial role in developing livable and workable spaces. According to Ian, smart cities are areas that take advantage of ICT to enhance livability, workability, and sustainability. Furthermore, the use of ICT in smart cities enables a better understanding on the needs of its occupants at present and in the future.
In the course of his presentation, Ian noted the rapid influx of people – estimated at 90 million by 2030. Consequently, moving in to urban areas has increased the demand to develop smart cities, adding to that is the continuous urbanization and the lack of proper real estate infrastructure for living and working. Thus, within these smart cities, co-living and co-working set-ups have been introduced.
In Ian’s presentation, he cited Manila as one of the pilot smart cities that slowly integrates technology in enhancing the working and living conditions of its workforce. To add on to this, Yves Luethi, Co-Founder and Director of Talox, further reiterates how technology influences and transforms the people’s behavior toward living and working spaces.
In the recent JLL Philippines’ Market Overview, Head of Research and Consultancy, Janlo de los Reyes, cited the millennial generation to have the highest occupant rate in both co-living and co-working spaces. Janlo highlights particularly the young urban professionals to be more enticed to shift to adapting a co-living set-up, with considerations lying heavily on convenience and cost.
During the Real Estate Summit, Philippine Urban Living Solutions’ Group Director, Jelmer Ikink, shares how young urban professionals have seen an alternative in occupying co-living spaces to address the growing gap on the quality of living experience. Jelmer further notes that in 2019, young urban professionals have an estimate monthly savings of Php 10,500 in commuting cost equivalent to 5-9 days in a month worth of earnings after shifting to co-living set-up.
Jelmer Ikink highlights how co-sharing has become a global phenomenon. Businesses and companies have been transforming office spaces to co-working set-ups. Goudie Associates’ Head of Design, Sheryl Medina-Pura, mentioned ‘technology and generations’ as the main drivers of office transformation during the Real Estate Summit. In her presentation, Sheryl explains that companies should adapt to more flexible working spaces with their current and future workforce in mind. Further to this, she detailed that office spaces must be ‘kinetic’, a concept that allows companies to plan for workspaces that are relative to its growth. Sheryl also adds how designing workspaces must be able to address the occupants’ needs to a fulfilling and fun working experience, adding design to be a crucial component to this.
JLL Philippines’ Country Head, Christophe Vicic, shares in a media conference during the Real Estate Summit how JLL continuously innovates organizational approaches to achieve the ‘Future of Work’, and the human experience is at the core of this vision. JLL is a strong proponent of this globally, and Christophe aims to deliver this vision for both JLL Philippines’ employees and its clients.
During the Real Estate Summit, thought-leaders have been consistent in highlighting the importance for companies in creating a digital strategy. As with Christophe Vicic, JLL Philippines has the expertise and equipment in developing future-ready solutions that would address the fast-evolving real estate industry. PropTech enables JLL to offer solutions to help clients manage and make the most of their real estate assets. Ian Chadsey discussed one of the many applications of PropTech through the JLL Liquid Lab, where they use a live environment as an ‘innovation playground’, with the ultimate goal of creating a healthier and more productive work environment. This industry-first platform enables engagement, co-creation, and experimentation – all very much needed to address the ever-changing needs of the real estate landscape.
JLL’s Christophe Vicic further adds that innovation in the traditional business models, through the Future of Work, may be deemed as a challenge for organizations that continue to function in silos.
Collaboration is crucial among employees across industries, as this increases productivity and produces better work quality. Adaptation will bring positive changes to organizations that take clear and collective action to embrace uncertainty and turn disruption into an opportunity.
