Client: Raiffeisen Property Holding International
Industry: Real Estate Development and Investment Services
Real Estate Portfolio: 250 substantial properties across Central and Eastern Europe including the Skytower (Romania’s tallest building)
Trimble Solutions: Manhattan
Customer Since: 2010

When you have to manage commercial and residential properties across nearly a dozen countries with different cultures, languages, currencies, legal frameworks, and economic and political conditions, you need a flexible real estate management system that can cross borders with ease. That’s why pioneering real estate developer Raiffeisen turned to Trimble’s Manhattan software.

Who are Raiffeisen?

Raiffeisen Property Holding International (RPHI) is the wholly-owned real estate development arm of Vienna-based Raiffeisen Bank International, a leading commercial and investment bank in Austria and Central and Eastern Europe. The bank has some 2700 business outlets across the region and services around 15 million corporate and private customers.

RPHI specializes in developing, managing and selling office buildings, shopping centres, hotels, residential properties and land in Central and Eastern Europe. It operates in 11 countries and has a network of local subsidiaries in Austria, Ukraine, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Russia.

Recognized as a real estate pioneer in Central and Eastern Europe, RPHI provides real estate development and investment services on behalf of its parent company, Raiffeisen Bank International, as well as many external clients. Its services span the entire real estate lifecycle—from project ideas and concepts through to the construction, management and utilization of properties. It has a reputation for completing all of its projects on schedule and within budget.

RPHI now manages some 250 substantial properties across Central and Eastern Europe. It was responsible for developing the first modern office building in the region and also built the first four-star hotel in Kiev and the first detached housing complex in Prague.

RPHI Needed a Feature-Rich Property Management System

Because RPHI develops and manages a diverse portfolio of properties in multiple countries, it has to operate under many different legal jurisdictions in disparate economic, cultural and political conditions, especially in Eastern Europe. It also has to conduct real estate transactions and financial accounting in eight different currencies and multiple languages.

As a result, RPHI realized that it needed a feature-rich property management system that could support cross-border operations and provide a centralized, structured overview of its whole real estate portfolio; and support the company’s strategic decision-making by providing accurate, real time visibility of all important property, leasing and financial data in every country in its network.

RPHI also needed a solution that would allow all users to input data into the central system in the same way—and to a common standard—in each country.

Perfect Flexible Solution for Managing its Multi-Territory Portfolio

RPHI felt that Trimble’s modular Manhattan real estate management system offered the perfect flexible solution for managing its multi-territory portfolio efficiently and cost-effectively, as well as providing easy access to up-to-date information, analytics and reporting.

The integrated suite is designed to streamline the management of the entire real estate lifecycle—from crucial day-to-day property and lease management and maintenance, to multi-GAAP accounting, financial reporting and budget planning.

The company also recognized the benefits of Manhattan’s fully contained international financial management suite which can deliver automation, control and integration for property accounting.

The End Result

RPHI put the Trimble Manhattan system at the heart of a centralized, ‘umbrella’ structure which enables the company to maintain a uniform standard for all database management and lease management procedures across its entire network of subsidiaries in Austria, Ukraine, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Russia.

Manhattan is now used exclusively as the central input tool for all property and lease-related information. All local subsidiaries also benefit from the system’s multi-currency and multi-language capability which allows users to enter data centrally in their own language and local currency.

Because of Manhattan’s inherent flexibility, RPHI has been able to implement the same functionality—including database management, lease management and grids—in all eight countries without having to make any significant modifications to the system. The company is also using Manhattan’s accounting software for multi-GAAP accounting, financial reporting and budgeting in Austria.

RPHI has found that, despite the significant regional differences, important data is now entered in exactly the same way by more than 90% of users in each country—with all users “speaking the same language” when it comes to common definitions of key real estate terms such as ‘gross floor area’.

Book a Demo of Manhattan

If you would like to learn more about Trimble’s integrated workplace management software, please visit the Manhattan product page.