Significant change has swept the commercial real estate sector in recent years. Over time, larger volumes of capital from a variety of institutional sources have moved into the industry, and real estate truly emerged as an acceptable risk-managed asset class. As real estate assets under management grew, investors devised new strategies and extended their portfolios to new geographic regions, untapped sectors and new investment vehicles.

For investors and investment managers, the sheer size and breadth of those investment portfolios significantly increased the complexity of operations, the search for greater transparency and the need for more robust risk management — pressures that were building even before the impact of the global financial crisis.

When that financial event hit, investors the world over realised the inadequacy of available information, a lack of reliable processes and the weakness of many of the information syst