Most multifamily residential management companies end up with a portfolio of properties in numerous locations regionally or nationwide. These properties will naturally differ in many of their key characteristics. Creating standard operating procedures on how they are to be operated will allow for easier management and movement of employees from one property to another as needed. These SOPs should be extended to how you handle your technology to add efficiency to that part of your business. Here we will discuss 3 advantages of technology standardization for multifamily residential.
Starting Point
One of the challenges of technology standardization for multifamily is the starting point. If you haven’t been standardizing networks as you acquire new properties, or if you’ve inherited other folks’ networks along the way, you could have a varied conglomeration of equipment.
This could mean a different setup and equipment at every single site in extreme cases. This is hard on IT because support for every device can be different. This may mean that it takes longer to fix an issue. The increased work to fix various setups can add to the cost and complexity of support.
When this is the case multifamily organizations that want to standardize do a couple of things. First, they start by standardizing all new sites as they get onboarded. Then they plan to systematically go back and standardize all existing sites at a predetermined cadence. Within a couple of years, they can get their entire organization and all sites.
Advantages – Lower Support Costs
Standardizing technology across all your properties helps to lower your support costs. It does this by giving your IT team a similar setup at every location. This familiarity with equipment and configuration leads to faster responses and resolutions. That increases productivity for the staff in that site and saves time for your IT team, allowing you to do more with less.
Advantages – Interoperability
Another advantage to a standardized IT setup is ease of use for your employees. They have the same apps, the same operating system, and can do the same functions with ease regardless of what property they are at. This can assist with staff needs as you have turnover and can make it much simpler when your employees need to work at another property for any reason.
Advantages – Acquisitions and Dispositions
Another common challenge for multifamily is the buying and selling of properties. Sometimes this can happen on a short time frame, leaving you with little time to plan and execute. Having a standardized setup for IT allows you to very quickly move when needed. Your IT team already knows exactly what the needed configuration is with very few variations. This allows them to execute with speed and accuracy.
Some of our multifamily clients have even had us configure a “network in a box”. Essentially, we have built and pre-configured an entire network setup with firewall, switch, wireless and laptops for a new property and have it ready to go on the shelf. If they acquire a new property on a short timeline, we can ship it to the location and have it up and running with very little notice.
Selling properties becomes easier too. Your IT team will be aware of exactly what the setup is and can have a plan in place for transitioning that equipment to the new property owner if needed. This makes property dispositions a cinch from an IT standpoint.
Conclusion
There are a lot of advantages to a standard IT setup in multifamily. It allows you to lower your support costs and downtime while increasing your staff’s ability to use the technology in place. It also makes it possible to be nimble when acquiring new properties or selling ones off.
i.t.NOW has a lot of experience in the multifamily residential space. If you’ve got questions about how to standardize your network, or other IT or cyber security solutions give us a call. Our team of experts would love to help.
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