Case Study: Implementation of an Asset Management System That Reduced Errors & Increased Analysis Capabilities

Institutional investors are always seeking to achieve their required rate of returns within their set risk appetite by analyzing their portfolio utilizing actionable information. The challenge facing institutional investors is the lack of easy and timely access to the data needed to drive an informed decision making process, whether it be increasing commitments to a strong performing property type, or disposing of an under performing portfolio. The status quo requires institutional investors to rely on various third-party information providers, such as joint venture partners and property managers, to provide quality data to enable the required analyses. Unfortunately like all types of information, data can be prone to human error, not timely enough, biased, or not adequately organized. Analyses of poor quality, or worse, inaccurate data will ultimately lead to incorrect investment decisions and/or inappropriate strategy development, which will adversely affect investor returns. RCLCO mitigates these issues with a well-defined reporting and monitoring process powered by an asset management system that reduces errors and allows for robust data management and analysis to help our clients make sound investment decisions.

The asset management system at RCLCO bridges the gap between our clients and their investments. The system streamlines all asset level data from our client’s partners and managers in a single platform, where data can either be pulled or pushed by third-party property management and accounting systems.  The asset management system then configures the data from all of the managers into one uniform data set that is used in two primary ways:

• The system’s robust reporting functions allows RCLCO and clients to independently generate reports and analytics (such as budget to actuals variances, financial statements, and occupancy/leasing reports) rather than requesting the third-party data owners to provide the data or the reports, which can take days or weeks.
• RCLCO can complete in-depth portfolio analysis of our clients’ portfolio using the data in the asset management system to provide appropriate recommendations and strategies. For example, using the asset management system, RCLCO can generate a RevPAF report for all self-storage assets in a specific MSA to identify underperformers as well as the relevant drivers towards formulating options and/or solutions. 

RCLCO adopted the new asset management system in order to help our institutional clients optimize returns by identifying the key drivers in their portfolios. This is achieved by reducing the layers and manual processes involved in gathering and harmonizing the information required to drive sound investment decisions (utilizing timely, accurate information and insightful analytics).