Today, Forte Partners is responsible for multiple building developments in Bucharest, catering to a range of national and international companies. The company always strives to ensure that tenants get more out of their buildings by helping them maximize the efficiency of their resources and foster a greater sense of community.

Finding new ways to offer building tenants greater value
Forte Partners have a broader, more forward-thinking vision for real estate development. Apart from designing sleek, contemporary buildings, they also aim to offer greater value to tenants by providing higher levels of building efficiency and a more connected experience.

To achieve this, the company began looking for ways to pull together data from various resources available to building users such as parking, desks or meeting rooms, and share that information with tenants. This would give tenants insights into their environment, so they could better understand day-to-day operations and make improvements.

Enriching the tenant experience with Genetec Security Center
Working with their system’s integrator, Helinick, Forte Partners initially deployed Genetec Security Center. The unified security platform merges video surveillance, access control, and resource management applications into a single solution.

At first, the main goal was to track parking utilization. After some time, the cumulative data in Security Center showed tenants were only using around 50 percent of their available parking. This insight led Forte Partners to wonder how else they could help tenants make better use of the building’s resources. Ultimately, they wanted to provide a more integrated suite of functions to the tenants.

Forte Partners saw how Security Center could be used as a more flexible, digital channel to manage building amenities. With the intuitive and unified platform, tenants could see real-time resource availability and then book a car park space, assign a desk, and secure meeting rooms throughout the day.

Tenants would also be able to use their smartphones to gain access to the building, open and close doors, and manage Name Forte Partners Industry Building management Location Bucharest, Romania Products Security Center, Genetec Software Development Kit Partners Helinick elevators. Enabled by NFC and Bluetooth, this mobile capability offered touchless entry and exit which was critical during the pandemic.

“We knew we needed to bring together many different aspects of building optimization and felt that a unified platform that linked parking, access control, and video security would help to make everything simpler and more efficient,” explained Mihai Gheorghe, Product Manager at Helinick.

Developing a cutting-edge mobile app for better resource management
Aiming to enhance the overall tenant experience, Forte Partners worked closely with Helinick and Genetec to develop a new integrated solution that would help tenanted organizations and their employees digitally manage building resources.

Using the Genetec software development kit (SDK), the team was able to combine building access, shared services, smart office systems, parking, and hot desk booking into one application called SpotUs.

Today, this new resource management software platform allows tenants and members within their organization to use a mobile app to book resources, check availability of resources, or even invite visitors to access the resources (parking places, desks, meeting rooms, etc.) any time. Beyond this, users can also use the solution to seamlessly connect with other community members, resources, and services offered at the workplace.

Over 7,000 users across multiple office locations in Bucharest now have access to the app and the response has been extremely positive. According to Mihai, “We manage so much of our lives from our smartphones, so why should our buildings be any different?”

“Users have been delighted with this development. They value the flexibility and freedom that is delivered through the app, allowing them to work more efficiently as they continue to embrace the new hybrid work model. We can see that tenants are getting more out of their working environments than they were in the past. Increased digitization of the real estate market is a key trend and a critical part of our business strategy going forward,” said Stephen Burke, Construction Director at Forte Partners.

Moving the vision for a more connected tenant experience forward
Looking ahead, Forte Partners sees a clear path for the evolution of this SpotUs app. The logical next step is integrating the app with the building management system (BMS). This will allow users to personalize their working space and remotely adjust various settings such as lighting and heating. For instance, using Security Center and SpotUs, tenants could create custom settings that stipulate that lighting is automatically turned on as soon as someone enters a meeting room.

Forte Partners also wants to encourage tenants to use the app to connect with each other to increase the sense of community within the buildings. They also see an opportunity to help tenants engage with surrounding neighborhood businesses.

“We’re always impressed with the ingenuity our partners and end users bring to the deployment of our unified platform," said Jakub Kozak, Regional Sales Manager at Genetec. "In this case, Forte Partners and Helinick are playing a role in changing an industry, supporting new working models and underpinning and creating communities.”

Since partnering with Helinick and Genetec, Forte Partners has developed a more digital and connected real estate portfolio that is better able to serve the changing working habits of its tenants. They are helping organizations everywhere leverage data to better understand how their resources are used and to create a more engaging and efficient experience for employees and visitors. More than that, they are helping people come together in more meaningful ways, creating more vibrant, connected communities.

“Users have been delighted with this development. They value the flexibility and freedom that is delivered through the app, allowing them to work more efficiently as they continue to embrace the new hybrid work model.”