THOUGHT LEADERSHIP ARTICLE
Building stronger tenant relationships
SP Digital’s TenantCare and automated metering systems improves tenant engagement and satisfaction to drive sustainability.
W
hen it comes to tenants, property owners have two key priorities - retaining existing tenants and attracting new ones by offering differentiated and value-added services. These include helping tenants achieve a better workplace experience and reducing utilities costs and their carbon emissions. Smart Meters for a Smart Future Commercial properties traditionally rely on manual meters to collect utilities data from tenants. Third-party service providers read the meters manually and tenants are then billed based on their electricity consumption. However, such traditional metering systems result in higher operating costs and poor productivity. Resources are deployed to take manual readings and perform checks to verify readings. Moreover, usage data from traditional meters cannot be obtained in a timely and accurate manner, making it harder to resolve tenant enquiries. One solution is for landlords to tap on smart meters. Today’s Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) or smart meters are capable of real-time and advanced monitoring. This has enabled the digitisation and automation for building owners. SP Digital, the digital arm of SP Group, believes that energy technology can help customers achieve efficiencies, cost and energy savings, and be sustainable. It’s Chief Executive Officer Chang Sau Sheong highlighted that SP Digital’s inhouse solutions can help drive operational efficiency through automation, while helping customers contribute to a low carbon, smart energy future. “We want to use digital capabilities to help our customers to deliver value for themselves, and for their tenants,” he said. Property owners want to prioritise operational efficiency when it comes to managing tenants, as well as increasing rental yield and brand value. To achieve this, SP Digital developed the Smart Digital Suite platform that integrates different building systems and diverse data sources. It provides landlords with a holistic and seamless experience in managing their buildings and help landlords improve their relationships with their tenants.
Chang Sau Sheong, CEO at SP Digital
TenantCare, one of Smart Digital Suite’s modules, allows landlords to efficiently manage tenant energy consumption and around common areas. It simplifies operational challenges involved in utility management, improves tenant engagement, and frees up valuable time for building owners to focus on their core business. TenantCare – Using prompt and accurate data to achieve energy and cost savings Chang mentioned that through the TenantCare module and smart meters, each tenant’s electricity consumption can be read every half hour, compared to the traditional monthly reading. Chang added that with monthly utilities readings in a traditional system, it is hard to analyse what causes a surge in utility bills. This limits the ability to take proactive actions. TenantCare addresses these problems and reduces conflicts. Any anomalies in utilities consumption can be addressed immediately through anomaly detection algorithms and alerts.
These then provide actionable insights almost immediately compared to waiting for monthly data. TenantCare also helps landlords in terms of revenue assurance as the use of smart meters significantly reduces human errors and prevents unnecessary revenue losses due to manual readings and inaccurate billing. It comes with SP Digital’s robust advanced metering infrastructure, as well as hardware and communications infrastructure that are standards compliant and reliable. With SP Digital’s focus on advancing sustainability for customers, solutions like TenantCare can drive behavioural changes for both the tenants and the landlords in terms of how they view management of utilities. “Our vision is to Power Sustainability with EnergyTech for a low carbon, smart energy future. The kind of solutions that we are deploying for the commercial real estate market will drive sustainability by empowering both the landlords and tenants in their green efforts,” Chang said. To find out more about TenantCare and SP Digital’s portfolio of solutions, contact: spd@spgroup.com.sg
TenantCare Dashboard
“We want to use digital capabilities to help our customers to deliver value for themselves, and for their tenants” SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | JUNE 2021
29
