Tech sprawl in commercial real estate
Asking the right questions
Commitment to technology doesn't mean efficient use of technology.
The commercial real estate (CRE) sector is experiencing a significant digital transformation, with technology playing an increasingly vital role in day-to-day operations.
A recent study by Building Engines, "The state of commercial property management technology, 2025," reveals that an overwhelming 99% of CRE professionals are either boosting their software investments (45%) or maintaining current spending levels (54%).
However, the question remains: Are you maximizing the potential of your technological resources? This guide aims to help you unlock the full capabilities of your existing tech stack while avoiding the pitfalls of unnecessary technological expansion. We'll explore strategies to optimize your current tools and ensure that your technology investments are aligned with your business objectives, ultimately driving efficiency and growth in your CRE operations.
What is tech sprawl?
With the proliferation of technology, organizations bring on tools to solve their individual challenges - but can find that those tools ultimately don't work together. Data can end up in too many places, point solutions don't connect, and the technology that you brought on to solve your challenges ultimately ends up creating more challenges of its own.
What challenges are CRE professionals facing that are made worse by tech sprawl?
Changing tenant needs
Tenants continue to want more out of their buildings. In turn, we're seeing a shift towards more service-oriented, flexible, and tech-enabled real estate solutions.
With flexibility in what they need, and interest in technology usage, tenants must have one location for all of their data and information.
Compliance for insurance concerns
From sustainability certifications to health and safety concerns, property managers need to stay updated with industry's changing regulations.
Remaining up-to-date is one thing, but when you need to find specific information to manage COI's, you can't waste time looking in multiple places for your data.
Maximizing portfolio performance
Asset managers and property managers want to look across their portfolios and know what is working well - and what needs attention.
With metrics such as net operating income (NOI), you can't have information sprawled across systems. You need to have all your data in one platform to quickly understand building performance.
What are the symptoms of tech sprawl?
As "The state of commercial property management technology, 2025," survey found, CRE professionals' top 3 priorities for their tech stack are building operations and property maintenance, energy management and sustainability, and tenant experience.
Managing these priorities with technology is great - but when you need an individual solution for each challenge, that makes for a lot of work. Here are the challenges that come with owning a large tech sprawl.
Inability to find critical information
Where does your data live? This is important not just for your own work, but for your tenants who seek out key information for their space. You don't want to be stuck going from system to system to find the status of maintenance requests, occupancy rates, energy efficiency, and other key data.
Integration challenges
Similarly, if you do want to bring all of your key information into one space, tools that don't work together make this a fruitless endeavor. Tools without any integration capabilities make work just as hard as working manually.
User experience suffering
People who need to access key information are going to be wasting time going from system to system, instead of acting on that information. For example, a property manager may need to use 3 different applications and multiple mobile applications to keep a building running as intended.
What does solving tech sprawl mean?
Strong integrations
Key data in one place
Improved user experience
Easy-to-track ESG requirements
The right property management software brings everything into one place.
Instead of using multiple technology solutions that keep all this data separate, the right tools will simplify the process and give you all your data in a single dashboard. Building Engines brings all of your property management data together, creating a building operations platform that's a one-stop shop for the information you need to get your job done. From work orders and maintenance to risk and vendor management, your most critical operations will all live in one easy-to-use platform.
