Show Me the Documentation

There are many ways to evaluate facilities and real estate software providers. You can conduct web searches, consult industry analysts, issue a Request for Proposal (RFP), schedule demonstrations and even take advantage of free trial offers. Many organizations do all of the above. And while these evaluation methods are valid and highly recommended, most software vendors in the industry have polished their web sites, proposals, demonstrations and trial versions to a mirror-glaze. Often it takes the right questions and a discerning eye to get an accurate measure of strengths and weaknesses. However, there are several easy ways to measure the completeness of a facilities or real estate software package. One of the best ways to evaluate a software package is to weigh its documentation. After all, it’s not a complete product if it does not have documentation.

Nevertheless, for many software vendors, documentation is an after-thought. The developers write excellent code but don’t ask them to put together a coherent paragraph in plain English. The professional services team is often too busy and focused on billable hours to help. The marketing team has writers but they are focused on web sites, press releases, brochures and other communications. At these vendors, the documentation becomes a last-minute, ditch effort to meet the release deadline. The documentation becomes a project … a loosely coordinated team of internal “gurus” that bolt together manuals to just get it done. Only the vendors with dedicated, documentation writers follow structured and consistent processes to generate documentation as a core component of the development lifecycle. You can be confident that vendors with complete documentation offer a stronger product. It is an excellent indicator of completeness of vision and ability to execute.

So ask the basic questions. Do you have dedicated documentation writers? Do you have a complete set of documentation? Are there installation guides, system administration guides and user manuals? How often to you update the documentation? Does every release come out with a new, complete set of documentation? Can we see some samples of your documentation? The answers to these questions might well surprise you.

On samples of documentation, it is important to realize that software vendors are justifiably reluctant to provide a complete manual or set of manuals to prospective customers. Ours is an extremely competitive marketplace and freely distributing complete documentation is a recipe for trade-secret-disasters. For good reason, documentation is given to customers only, held under strict guidelines and enforced through Non-Disclosure Agreements. None of this, however, should preclude you from demanding a list of the most current documentation, the table of contents from each and a sample page or screen captures of the documentation as a proposal attachment. You can also make documentation part of the software demonstration. While the vendor will not leave the documentation behind, there is no reason why they can’t bring a complete set to pass around during the demonstration.

So, the next time you hear a software vendor claim they have the best real estate or facilities solution on the market, tell them to show you the documentation.

Visual Real Estate and Facilities Management

Ours is a visual world. Visual media and technology stream into our phones, our cars … even our refrigerators. Now we are approaching an age when these technologies converge. Now, we use mobile phones to see our cars on GPS maps to find the refrigerator store.

In the real estate and facilities management arenas, visual technology is nothing new. The ability to view floor plans in a facilities management context has been around for more than a decade. The past few years, however, have rendered amazing advancements when it comes to visualizing real estate and facilities assets. Bricsnet is on the forefront of these advancements, offering a broad range of visualization tools:

• Cutting Edge Maps: Combine Bricsnet’s powerful real estate and facilities management capabilities with a map application of your choice, including Google Earth, Google Maps or Microsoft Virtual Earth. View demographic reports directly on maps, drill into your facilities, perform powerful searches and conduct site selection with real time data.
• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Push KPI dashboards to end user portals based on role; measure the “health” of your projects, portfolio, maintenance operations and contracts at a glance; configure favorite reports and create graphics in a wide range of formats (e.g., pie, bar, table).
• Stacking: Run stacking reports to see which organizations, people and assets are occupying space, what they are using it for, and how that contributes to costs, productivity and efficiency. Create color coded reports and view floor plans by organizational assignments, vacancies, costs centers and more.
• Document Management: Attach CAD drawings, photographs and other images to any record throughout the system. Apply version control, check-in/check-out and discussion threads to visual documents in a controlled environment. Collaborate at new levels through Internet Explorer without the need for expensive applications installed on end-user machine.
• Visual Schedules: Manage the critical path through a variety of schedules views including Gantt charts, reports and unique summary views that are based on real time, accurate information.

In short, Bricsnet maintains its place on the forefront of real estate and facilities technology with a broad range of advanced visualization tools. It is worth looking into these advancements as Bricsnet delivers informed decisions based on real time, accurate data; increased performance as decision makers act from top-down views; competitive advantages when it comes to site selection and lowered space management costs; and improved end-user adoption through intuitive portals that match your organization’s style. To learn more about how Bricsnet’s visualization capabilities can improve performance and lower costs for your organization, contact Bricsnet at (415) 321-2650 or www.Bricsnet.com.

Lower Project and Construction Costs with Bricsnet

Bricsnet lowers costs and improves efficiencies throughout your organization. With more than 20 years experience, Bricsnet has proven results at many organizations just like yours. Benefits include:

• Speed to Value: With a focus on speed-to-value, Bricsnet offers best-practice-solutions to meet your organization’s needs directly. For example, for your project and construction management needs, Bricsnet delivers projects on-time and on-budget.
• Advanced Collaboration: Through unprecedented collaboration tools (e.g., document management, workflow, direct e-mail, dashboard notifications) Bricsnet manages tasks throughout the lifecycle.
• Improved Project Performance: For your organization’s schedules, Bricsnet enforces delivery dates, renders milestones on Gantt charts to measure impacts and automatically reminds team members of approaching critical dates. Bricsnet imports and exports to Microsoft® Project and delivers project history reports from a broad range of perspectives.
• Enhanced Budgets and Accountability: Bricsnet offers advanced change management throughout the solution, including tracking of budget, asset and personnel changes as your organization evolves. Bricsnet also provides complete audit trails throughout the system.

At leaders in your industry, Bricsnet has conducted Return-On-Investment (ROI) studies, discovery sessions and in-depth technical demonstrations to help prove our solutions are the best available choice. Bricsnet can do the same for you.

A Better Path for Enterprise Software

Enterprise software systems, commonly known through their initials – ERP, CRM, SCM, IWMS and the like – have proliferated throughout the business world over the past 20 years. And with good reason: To operate with maximum effectiveness in a competitive environment, businesses have a critical need to organize their information, streamline and standardize their processes, enable controlled and secure access on a global basis, and produce meaningful metrics that aid in understanding performance and trends. Database-driven systems are excellent tools with which to pursue all of these goals.

But there is a problem. As expectations of and reliance on systems has grown, so have the burdens of operating, maintaining and using them. Implementations have come to consume years of effort and large teams of professionals. Training alone can be a frightening prospect for the workers who will be expected to use the systems.

And so, while implementations drag on, businesses face the same operational and performance issues and often must continue to rely on the “old tools” – ledgers, spreadsheets, files and memos – while the enterprise system acts as a time-consuming distraction.

Bricsnet believes there is a better answer.

Bricsnet’s motto is “Speed to Value.” For more than 20 years, Bricsnet has operated in the belief that, in order to serve their purpose, technology systems must be capable of rapid implementation, easy availability and low-effort support and maintenance. No application provides value until it is making a positive difference in the workplace.

Bricsnet technology helps organizations avoid the pitfalls commonly encountered in implementing complicated, enterprise systems through an advanced technical architecture and a Speed-to-Value model that quickly delivers a positive impact on the bottom line. We do this by carefully building our applications on a foundation that includes:

• Standards-based, fully supported technology platform
• Three-tier, web-based architecture
• Services oriented architecture
• Web Services for integration and interoperability
• Platform independence, with certification processes for new platforms
• Utilization of select Open Source components
• Modularity
• Scalability and resilience
• Flexible delivery options
• Configurable, role-based security model

If you're interested in learning more about how Bricsnet's technical architecture can help you to get up and running quickly so that you can focus on your business rather than your applications, read our whitepaper, "Bricsnet Technology: Flexibility, Security, Reliability". You can get the whitepaper at the Bricsnet web site.

Happy reading!

What "Speed to Value" Means to You

Real estate management technology has many names today like Integrated Workplace Management (IWMS), Corporate Real Estate (CRE) and Computer Aided Facilities Management (CAFM). With each passing year, we add another acronym to the mix and dive through another wave of marketing campaigns, white papers and consulting engagements to improve the bottom line. Through the hard work of today’s real estate and facilities management professionals, the industry has made tremendous progress despite continuous expansion.
We are reaching a point, however, where the costs and complexities of implementing real estate systems are tipping the balance against their intended returns. Some IWMS implementations, for example, are already posting the same results as Enterprise Resource Planning (EPP) projects: multi-year implementation engagements, exorbitant costs, frustrating distractions from the primary mission and failures across the board. Simply Google “ERP failures” and you get back roughly 250,000 results (or links) that describe a broad range of failures. To improve this trend (and stay in business) the ERP giants are changing their service models to deliver streamlined solutions. SAP, for example, is now offering a web subscription model as a, “simplified and cheaper business software aimed at small and midsize companies -- think Mini Cooper.[1]”
Enterprise Resource Planning and IWMS implementations can have many similarities in scope, cost and complexity. The most glaring similarity, however, is extensive software customizations. Organizations get extensive Request-for-Proposal (RFP) requirements from a broad range of departments, often expanding the range of IWMS and ending up with highly specialized needs. Given the “enterprise” nature of these implementations, IWMS vendors propose herculean implementations with extensive customizations, thousands of hours of consulting fees and behemoth projects that distract their customers from the core mission. And when the implementation finally goes-live (often years later), the organization is left with an extremely complicated “toolkit” to keep up with future changes and upgrade nightmares. Sound familiar?
Given the many similarities between ERP and IWMS (e.g., extensive customization, extensive integration efforts, complicated processing synchronizations, enterprise level impacts), many real estate professionals in both the private and public sectors are choosing to learn from recent history. A recent IFMA Report, for example, cites “rapid pace of change; compatibility, complexity, [and] obsolescence[2]” among the key challenges of emerging technologies. IFMA also cautions decision makers not to “over customize” when it comes to their real estate and facilities strategies.
So it’s not surprising to see a trend toward smaller, more simplified and out-of-box real estate and facilities management solutions that deliver speed-to-value rather than complexity. Take a step back and think about it logically. Ask yourself the following questions:
· After spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, will the myriad of RFP requirements and resultant customizations remain locked in stone forever more?
· Will the people and their needs throughout your organization be exactly the same next year?
· Is it easier and less expensive to customize software and navigate upgrades than expect users to learn the technology tools of their trade (much like they do with Microsoft Office products)?
The answer to all of these questions, of course, is no. This is not to say that real estate and facilities management professionals should consign themselves to inadequate technology. However, a careful balance between unique application requirements and implementation timeframes/costs must be struck to avoid the ERP pitfalls of recent years. Bricsnet provides this balance quickly with out-of-box solutions that install and can go-live within hours.
More importantly, Bricsnet real estate and facilities management solutions are developed and honed from decades of experience and customer input from professionals in every industry – since 1986. Bricsnet solutions are:
· Top Ranked: Bricsnet has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the leader’s quadrant in the 'Magic Quadrant for Integrated Workplace Management Systems, 2006.’
· Comprehensive: Bricsnet Enterprise, Retail and ProjectCenter solutions cover the entire range of needs for professionals in all industries. By providing instant, single-view access to vital data including critical dates, Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s), Key Performance Metrics (KPM’s) and business analytics of the organization, Bricsnet solutions achieve greater control over their real estate assets and operations to make better business decisions.
· Easy to Install: Bricsnet solutions are designed to be installed, configured, implemented and put into action quickly. ProjectCenter, our online collaboration solution, requires only access to a URL and generally requires less than an hour of training. Bricsnet Enterprise and Bricsnet Retail, our comprehensive real estate management solutions, can be implemented in just weeks.
· Intuitive: If you can navigate the Internet, you can use Bricsnet solutions. The system renders through graphical web portals with familiar, consistent commands.
· Flexible: Naturally, every organization needs to make minor adjustments for the system to fully meet their needs. Bricsnet provides intuitive forms, drag-and-drop functionality and elegant ways to add fields and workflow process that make sense.
· Easy to Maintain: Because minor changes are maintained at the database level, Bricsnet customers easily maintain and upgrade the solution without the need for additional consulting fees and/or major disruptions.
In short, Bricsnet delivers speed to value. Through highly focused solutions and Strategic Advisory Services that draw from Bricsnet specialists, strategic relationships and partners to fine-tune the implementation in weeks rather than years, Bricsnet has a long list of successful customers that reap of benefits of best-practices in short-order. More importantly, Bricsnet’s services are unique, offering performance management, best practices analysis, Key Performance Indicator (KPI) development, cost control, value creation and strategic advisory. Ask this expert how to strike the balance between value, time and cost and the answer is simple: Bricsnet.

[1] Abboud, Leila. “SAP’s New Model: Think Smaller,” The Wall Street Journal, September 19, 2007.
[2] International Facility Management Association. “Exploring the Current Trends and Future Outlook for Facility Management Professional,” www.ifma.org/tools/research/forecast_rpts/2007.pdf, 2007.