July 12, 2010

Reporting options in IWMS applications

IWMS expert and Lucernex President, Joe Valeri (see Joe’s management summary here), discusses reporting options in IWMS Location Performance Management Applications.

It always amazes me how little importance some software buyers place on reporting options. The fact is, while some IWMS applications have great industry specific functionality or better project management or CAFM or lease administration; the ultimate reason to establish a single source of location data it to enable effective decision-making. And effective decision-making can only come through thoughtful review of summarized data (i.e. reporting). While dashboards can help drive some decision making as can specific analysis functionality, reports are still the most widely used deliverable of any IWMS system.
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June 14, 2010

Single platform vs. multi-platform IWMS and why you should care

IWMS expert and Lucernex President, Joe Valeri (see Joe’s management summary here), discusses the differences between a single platform and multi-platform IWMS and why you should care.

Have you ever looked at an older house and noted how it’s had extensions added that don’t fit the original house? Whether it’s the pattern of the windows, the exterior surface or the shape of the extension that does not match you can tell it’s just not right and makes the whole structure look bad. Inside the house, the switch and outlet layout in the new rooms are different and the plumbing does not work as well as it did before. The air conditioning doesn’t get the house as cool and even the foundation of the house is cracking because the new and old sections are settling differently.
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May 24, 2010

A case for why integrated IWMS solutions are better than stand-alone real estate solutions

Lucernex expert and EVP Ken Brown’s (see Ken’s management summary here) provides a case for why integrated IWMS solutions are more beneficial than stand-alone real estate solutions or “Franken Products”.

When considering the purchase of real estate software point solutions such as Lease Administration, Project Management, Purchase Management, CMMS and Space Planning/CAFM it is helpful to understand the differences, benefits and challenges of a-la-carte options vs. an integrated suite of products. Individual software solutions are just that – products that are sold individually and have little to no compatibility with other product offerings. Product suites like an Integrated Workplace Management System (IWMS) are offered as an integrated group of solutions and give the user benefits such as flexibility, ease of use, common overhead, better support for system architectures and platforms. Vendors, like Lucernex Technologies, who build their systems from the ground up using one architecture, one database, one codebase and one common interface eliminate many of the problems encountered with so-called “best of breed” solutions. This blog will illustrate specific examples of why an integrated product suite such as IWMS is best:
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May 11, 2010

Joe Valeri in LowesforPros article

Lucernex President Joe Valeri is featured in an article released today on LowesforPros, a web publication. The article is titled The Benefits of Incorporating an Integrated Workplace Management System and focuses on the benefits of implementing and IWMS and how IWMS applications are replacing CMMS and CAFM solutions.

May 3, 2010

Lucernex Technologies Promotes Howard Zola to Vice President, U.S. Sales

Howard Zola Heads up Sales Team for Real Estate Intelligence Software Developer

DALLAS – (May 3, 2010) – Lucernex Technologies, a developer of business intelligence software for real estate management and development, announced today that it has promoted Howard Zola to vice president of U.S. sales. In this position, Zola will lead the company’s domestic sales efforts for its suite of Location Performance Management products for the corporate and retail real estate industry.
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April 26, 2010

IWMS in the “Cloud”

IWMS expert and Lucernex President, Joe Valeri (see Joe’s management summary here), discusses ASP, SaaS and Cloud Computing for IWMS solutions.

When Lucernex started in 2000 we were the first IWMS to deliver our entire application as 100% Web-based, delivered as an Application Service Provider (ASP) solution. In reality we did not know it at the time but we were actually a Software as a Service (SaaS) vendor even then (according to Wikipedia it was coined in a February 2001 article written by the Software & Information Industry’s (SIIA) eBusiness Division). The difference to end users is largely invisible (except in the lower price) but to a software vendor the difference drives flexibility, costs (hence price to end-user) and focus. The next step is “Cloud Computing”, a buzz word for a service that provides equipment to host applications while doing all of the IT management on a secure environment optimized for performance and scalability.
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April 12, 2010

Why a single platform IWMS beats “best of breed”

Lucernex expert and President Joe Valeri (see Joe’s management summary here) discusses how integrated sales prediction modeling improves an IWMS.

There are many vendors of real estate software to choose from today. There are vendors that provide individual solutions for mapping and GIS technology, modeling technology, transaction management, site selection and project management technology and there are several vendors that provide individual applications for facility management and maintenance technology. Firms possessing multiple locations can choose to buy one application at a time selecting the “best of breed” to meet each major set of requirements. For example, it is very common for the construction department of multi-location firms to buy a construction project management system purely to meet that very specific need while the real estate department might choose a lease administration solution and a mapping solution and the facilities group selects capital projects and facilities maintenance applications. The groups buy based on a singularly focused set of requirements pay a fair price and implement their technology.
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March 31, 2010

It’s time to upgrade lease administration software now

Lucernex expert and EVP Ken Brown’s (see Ken’s management summary here) discusses why its time to upgrade your Lease Administration Software.

Real estate organizations have been using lease administration systems for years. What started out as a replacement for clunky, file-based records that were often misplaced and decentralized, modern lease administration systems have turned into centralized, decision-support databases that are critical to maximizing ROI of real estate assets. When these systems first appeared, simply having all of the key leased and owned data in one place and sharable across the organization was the primary goal.
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March 29, 2010

IWMS with Sales prediction – the Site ROI predictor

Lucernex expert and President Joe Valeri (see Joe’s management summary here) discusses how integrated sales prediction modeling improves an IWMS.

In my last Blog I discussed use of Lease Analysis integrated into IWMS to provide the cost side of an ROI prediction tool. Cost is only half the data needed however, an accurate and trusted prediction of sales is equally important.

Sales prediction modeling is a tool used by real estate organization with multiple revenue producing sites whether it is direct sales, cell phone contracts, walk-in patients, investment clients, or tuition payments. In all cases a picture of “the customer” must be produced, usually based on past location results or a client defined picture of their customer.
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March 23, 2010

Lucernex provides path for SLIM, REM, Siteseer or Retail Lease Lease Administration upgrade

In 2009, Ken Brown, former CEO and Founder of National Facilities Group and the designer of the SLIM Lease Administration solution, joined Lucernex. He along with Lucernex’s President Joe Valeri and former Workplace IQ/Siteseer executive Howard Zola, set out to design a new module of Lx IWMS to manage all Leases and Contracts. The results is Lx Contracts!, a 100% web-based Lease Administration and Contract Management tool. SLIM was the first major lease administration solution to hit the market in the late 1980′s and was managed and developed by Ken until 2003. Ken’s expertise with all of the major lease administration tools including SLIM, REM, Siteseer and RetaiLease allowed Lucernex to create the new industry standard product for Lease Administration and Contract Management.
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