Technology strategy sets forward-looking vision

With a history spanning 150 years, this United States financial institution has grown to be a top-five U.S. bank, as measured by deposits and number of branches. The organization holds more than $290 billion in assets, is highly diversified with growing financial services, and provides everything from personalized banking services to wealth management, business banking, and corporate/institutional services for its global customers.

This client had grown rapidly through the acquisition of more than 12 smaller banks and had most recently acquired a larger, national bank in which their portfolio more than doubled in size with a single transaction. Following this recent merger, the company was relying heavily on their Corporate Real Estate (CRE) department to navigate the acquisition, but little relevant or usable technology or data was supplied by the other company.

Considering that the company had more than quadrupled in size over the last decade, and their technology platform, implemented in the early 2000’s, was no longer adequate to meet their evolving needs, the CRE team realized they needed a comprehensive technology strategy. With these things in mind, and planning for a new decade of growth, the company retained JLL, already a longtime partner, to conduct a comprehensive review of their technology, processes and procedures to help create a CRE strategy.

With the recent integration lessons still fresh, the institution implemented JLL’s best practice methodology. Through this, JLL’s team was able to identify organizational strengths and deficiencies and develop a plan for significant improvements based on industry best practices and state-of-the-art technology. The methodology, designed to facilitate decision making across the major CRE stakeholder groups, fully captures the current state of operations, documents major issues and opportunities, and seeks consensus for future organizational strategy.

Involving more than 125 CRE employees and several key business partners, the process yielded a well-defined business case and clearly presented return on investment benefit that highlighted the value of investing in the future. Company leadership unanimously selected an IWMS platform and gave full approval to proceed with the investment in planned improvements.