Inside JLL’s Bangalore centre for tech

In November 2018, JLL launched its 20,000 sq ft global Centre of Expertise for Technology, Data & Information Management in Bangalore, India.

PlaceTech spoke to Aftab Taylor, JLL’s EMEA chief information officer, for an update on the progress at the centre since the launch, which aims to set new standards for the commercial real estate industry.

What is the CoE and what are you hoping to get out of it?

The Centre of Expertise is the first of its kind globally for us at JLL and perhaps globally for the industry, because what it’s doing is bringing together many of our technological capabilities under one roof. From data application development all the way through to data management, it’s all come together under one roof to create a structured means to deliver valuable solutions to JLL and our clients.

Staying abreast of modern technologies is really important to give us that competitive edge, and this facility creates that ability for us and from what we’ve seen thus far it’s working wonders.

What’s happening at the centre?

There are multiple verticals spanning across Machine Learning, business intelligence, analytics architecture, data management application development, utilisation of Virtual and Augmented reality technology, and immersive tech.

There’s also a lot of focus on data because we are firm believers that technology can only take you so far. It’s the information that it provides and the data we harness that’s of value, so there’s lots of data management work going on here.

For the property industry, there are examples of machine learning where we work with information that we have about the market about behaviours, patterns and trends, which we are now able to automatically predict.

Early findings

The early findings that we have found since opening the centre are that we definitely picked the right location because of the incredible talent pool; Bangalore is a tech hotspot – it’s a hub of the latest and greatest in technology startups and great minds.

The Silicon Valley of India is a nickname for the city of Bangalore. Pictured is Bagmane Tech Park, the home of many tech companies

We’ve also found that bringing these multiple skill sets together under one roof has created an environment where great minds and talent are coming together to begin to solve some of the challenges the industry and the organisation faces.

There’s already been many great ideas for ways to do things more effectively and efficiently, but more importantly, they’ve come up with innovative and creative ideas for how we can serve our clients and customers a lot better and give them an improved customer experience, because that is the ultimate goal.

Inside the centre

The centre has the latest technology; we’ve got digital walls you can draw on with your finger; we’ve got Cave Automatic Virtual Environment projections which allows teams to use an immersive environment for research, utilisation sensors, and there’s all kinds of Internet of Things going on across the office. As you walk through the office, each area gets more impressive.

The centre is what the future of work should look like because we are firm believers in working the way you live. As your personal life becomes more tech-savvy and tech-driven, your work environment has to keep up otherwise when people come into the office, they’ll feel like they’re taking a step back.