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Deploying a unified security platform will make monitoring and managing your bricks and mortar assets a simpler proposition.
Is your commercial property management team finding it tough to keep on top of a growing volume of tasks and responsibilities? If you answered in the affirmative, you’re far from alone.
There’s no arguing the fact that, in 2025 Australia, managing commercial property can be a complex and fraught business. There are ever-increasing compliance requirements for facilities managers to contend with, along with a plethora of paperwork.
Tenants, meanwhile, have high and rising expectations regarding the standard of amenities they’ll enjoy and the responsiveness of the service they’ll receive.
They can afford to, given that the national office CBD vacancy rate currently stands at 13.7 per cent, according to the Property Council’s latest data.
That’s the highest it’s been since the mid-1990s, with all major markets oversupplied. Venture out to the suburbs, and the situation is even worse from a landlord’s perspective: 17.2 per cen of office space there remains vacant, according to Access Economics.
With home based and hybrid working arrangements now well entrenched across multiple sectors, it’s difficult to see that status quo changing significantly in the near term.
The flight to quality
When tenants are able to pick and choose, what’s been dubbed a ‘flight to quality’ is very often the result.
What does that look like on the ground? Generally, it means A-grade assets – well equipped, maintained and serviced buildings in prime locations – will continue to enjoy high occupancy rates and good rental returns while lesser quality stock sits empty or is considerably under-occupied.
Working in a safe environment is likely to be high on the priority list for many commercial tenants and something they’re willing to pay a premium for.
Hence, stringent security measures are one of the hallmarks of high-quality premises – a differentiator and a unique selling point that sets them apart from also-ran assets.
Locking down the building
For property managers, however, maintaining a robust physical security posture is not necessarily a simple proposition.
That’s because commercial property security has long relied on a patchwork of disconnected systems – one for access control, another for surveillance.
This fragmentation makes it difficult for security teams to respond to incidents in a timely fashion. Typically, control room staff must toggle between platforms to get an accurate picture of what’s unfolding on the ground before they can determine the appropriate response.
Siloed systems can make investigating incidents trickier too. If video is not in sync with access control logs, for example, reconstructing a series of events can be extremely challenging.
Tools to make the task easy
That’s where unified security technology has a vital role to play.
The term refers to an eco-system of security products that can be consolidated to enable them to operate as a single unit.
Bringing automated systems and sensors together into a single, cohesive system—think video surveillance, access control, licence plate recognition, and communications—allows property and facilities managers to centralise monitoring.
As a result, a small team of security professionals can capably oversee multiple buildings or sites, even when they’re geographically dispersed.
Having a bird’s eye view of what’s occurring, via a single, user-friendly dashboard, allows them to respond rapidly to incidents, correlate data across systems and collect legal evidence that’s able to withstand the strongest of scrutiny.
Offering a better tenant experience
Capably securing physical assets, via the use of unified security systems, enables landlords and property managers to offer an observably superior tenant experience.
Visitor management technology, for example, can streamline guest access without compromising security, while advanced surveillance and real-time monitoring contribute to a heightened sense of safety, particularly for tenants whose employees are on site outside standard office hours.
That counts – a lot. In some instances, it can be the deciding factor for tenants weighing up whether they should sign or renew a lease, or opt for alternative premises where the comfort factor is higher.
Creating a more secure future for your commercial property portfolio
Maintaining safe, secure physical assets is a commercial imperative for Australian property owners and managers in today’s challenging leasing landscape.
Drawing on the power of unified security technology will allow you to strengthen your defences, monitor your buildings and sites more effectively and manage security incidents efficiently, during and after the fact.
If you’re committed to tenant satisfaction and optimum occupancy rates, it’s an investment you can’t afford not to make.
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