Third-party accounting and reporting is a burgeoning segment of the commercial real estate industry. The Back Office of the Future, a new report produced by CBRE in partnership with Longview Global Advisors, explores the latest trends and best practices in the outsourcing of real estate accounting and administration.

The shift toward outsourcing back-office functions is driven by a number of factors, including the increasing scale and institutionalization of the real estate industry, as well as the move toward more global complexity. The combination of increasing investment vehicle complexity with rising demands for data has resulted in an overwhelming amount of information that needs to be processed — at the same time when investors are seeking to contain costs.

“Data is like water: It sustains everything we do,” says Jean-Francois Gillard, global head of investment accounting and reporting solutions at CBRE. “Yet, technology is increasingly complex a