Data science has taken a giant leap forward in the commercial real estate industry, especially in the past few years. Data strategies are evolving at a rapid clip as firms continue to develop best practices related to collecting, integrating and analyzing data to support better decision making.

“There is so much noise around big data that sometimes people don’t understand what it means,” says Indraneel Karlekar, managing director, global research and strategy at Principal Real Estate Investors. Data science isn’t meant to replace the human element; rather, it is meant to complement and enhance that investment decision process, he says. “The foundation of a well-executed data strategy is to provide information to our transaction officers so that they can take advantage of what the data is telling them to execute in a more superior fashion,” he adds.

Firms are using different approaches to develop data strategies, whether creating internal platforms, outsourc