When commercial building information reaches an owner, it has typically passed through multiple layers of management, each filtering out details not directly tied to their responsibilities. Bill Douglas, CEO of OpticWise, explains that this filtering is a primary reason owners and asset managers make decisions without a complete picture. "It depends on how many filters get applied before a decision-maker gets it," Douglas said. In property operations, a building engineer provides only requested data to a property manager, who then reports a subset to an asset manager or owner. Each person passes along what they are accountable for, not necessarily what is most important. "Not that it’s being massaged," Douglas noted, "but it’s being filtered." He emphasizes that this isn’t about dishonesty; people naturally focus on metrics they are measured and paid on. If a number looks bad, it may not make the report. "They’re not lying," Douglas said. "They’re performing to what they’re being measured for."
As a result, corporate teams, especially asset managers, often create their own spreadsheets to recapture filtered information. The data exists but isn’t reaching them in full. Douglas, who has coached entrepreneurs for 30 years, points to the difference between backward-looking and forward-looking key performance indicators (KPIs). Monthly financials show past performance but don’t indicate how to change future outcomes. "If I want to change the NOI, if I want to change the utility expenses, what’s the data that will actually make it change going forward?" he said. "I can’t change my financials until I look at the inputs." Homegrown spreadsheets introduce new problems: information lives behind individual logins, and emailed copies quickly become outdated.
The cost becomes evident during a sale or financing when a buyer’s or lender’s diligence team requests operating history behind a figure. The honest answer is often that it sits on someone’s laptop. "Anything can happen. Bad optics," Douglas said. "Most commonly, people stop pursuing it." Alternatively, the owner starts collecting data properly from that point, meaning usable history begins on day one instead of reaching back years. Gaps in operating data make a property harder to evaluate, potentially affecting both the timeline and price of a deal.
Many companies build dashboards around a handful of key metrics, but Douglas says this has limits. A person can realistically track six to 12 measures, while a building produces far more information. "Someone builds a dashboard around it, and they think they have control of everything," he said. "All they have is visibility of the KPIs. That is not control." Douglas argues that real control comes from access to source data. "Aggregated data tells you what happened. Source data helps you understand why," he said. A benchmark might show a property ranks in the 40th percentile for energy use, but only operating data reveals what to fix. With the full data set in one place, software can monitor for anomalies people can’t, flagging anything outside normal ranges over months or years. Different stakeholders—building engineers, property managers, asset managers, CFOs, and limited partners—can then access the view they need from the same data. Douglas clarifies this isn’t about replacing staff. "Your property still needs that many property managers," he said. The value comes from efficiency and from decisions based on complete information rather than filtered reports.
More on this approach is available on the OpticWise blog. OpticWise is a commercial real estate digital infrastructure and data strategy firm that helps owners and operators take control of their property data and technology. CEO Bill Douglas is co-author of the best-selling book Peak Property Performance®: Game-Changing AI and Digital Strategies for Commercial Real Estate (Fast Company Press) and host of the Peak Property Performance podcast.
