Digitalisation technologies in real estate and facility management

Digitalisation is not just about the application of technology, but also about business transformation enabled by digital technologies. In terms of digital transformation, there is still a significant backlog in real estate management (REM) and facility management (FM) that must be addressed. Digitalisation is changing not only the format in which information is held and processed, but also business processes and working methods. This gives rise to new concepts and methodologies, commonly referred to as digital transformation. REM and FM managers need to be aware of and understand the relevant digitalisation technologies that play an important role in the REM and FM sectors in order to take advantage of them. This paper aims to increase stakeholders’ digital awareness by explaining key digitalisation technologies in the context of their use in business. It does so by first providing an overview of the selected technologies and showing how they relate to each other, resulting in a technology matrix that categorises the business uses with regard to REM and FM managers, building users and operators. These digitalisation technologies are then explained and discussed in detail. This paper concludes by structuring the technologies, identified benefits and key implementation challenges within a digitalisation framework. This article is also included in The Business & Management Collection which can be accessed at https://hstalks.com/business/.