Proptech in the Office World: Friend, Fixer, or Just Another Fancy Dashboard?

By Kirk Layton, President & Co-Founder, The Tenex Group

Let’s face it – managing office buildings has never been a walk in the park, even when the parks were full and the tenants actually wanted to come into the office. Between fluctuating vacancy rates, hybrid work, and tenants who now expect buildings to function like five-star hotels and tech startups, property teams are doing Olympic-level juggling acts. Fortunately, proptech platforms like VTS, HqO, and Equiem have stepped in with promises to streamline operations, engage tenants, and provide the kind of data insights that used to require a minor in Excel sorcery.

Take VTS for example. It’s basically the central nervous system for leasing and tenant engagement. Instead of chasing updates across 12 spreadsheets, 14 emails, and one very tired leasing manager, VTS puts everything in one clean interface: deal pipeline, tenant renewals, tour activity, market comps – boom, it’s all there. For asset managers and landlords, that means faster decisions, tighter oversight, and fewer surprises. (And we all know that in CRE, surprises are rarely good news.) VTS also has a tenant-facing platform called Activate, which, in addition to tenant experience apps offered by HqO and Equiem, focuses on the occupants’ “office lifestyle” needs, allowing tenants to book amenities, RSVP to tenant events and provide updates on what’s going on at the building and in the local community. 

The trick with all of these tenant-facing platforms is, of course, figuring out how to keep the tenants engaged on the app and coming back for more. Unless you have a community manager who is dedicated to generating content for your proptech platform, things can become stale in a hurry, and usage rates suffer. (The Tenex Group offers up proptech content services for this very reason.) We’ve all seen that building where the app is beautifully branded and fully loaded … and has a whopping three active users.    

For some building managers, a tech platform that helps them promote their amenities and engage their tenants is just what the doctor ordered; for others, the benefits of tenant experience (tenex) apps are hard to pin down, with the amenities themselves feeling like so much flash. But tenex is about more than bells and whistles; it’s a strategy to create “stickiness” – the kind that makes tenants want to renew not just because the space works, but because the experience works. That matters in a market where renewals are hard-earned and the competition includes everything from co-working spaces to home offices.

Of course, none of this is plug-and-play magic. Implementing these platforms takes time, money, and buy-in from every level – leasing, ops, marketing, you name it. Integration with legacy systems can be … let’s call it “a journey,” and getting tenants to actually use the platform takes consistent communication and a little salesmanship. This is where having fresh and engaging content can help not only with increased usage but adoption of your platform. Giving your tenants a reason to sign up and check back often will help ensure a better overall tenant experience.  

All told, the benefits are real. These platforms give property teams something they’ve historically lacked: live, actionable data and a direct pipeline to their tenants. Who’s engaging, who’s disengaging, what spaces are being used (or not), which amenities actually matter – it’s all trackable. That means better service delivery, smarter CapEx decisions, and a fighting chance to stay ahead of tenant expectations. And in a climate where “doing more with less” might as well be the industry’s unofficial motto, that’s no small win.

In short: proptech isn’t a silver bullet, but it is a serious upgrade. Platforms like VTS, HqO, and Equiem won’t solve every challenge building managers face, but they’re making property teams faster, sharper, and more tenant-focused than ever. And honestly, in a business built on relationships and engagement, that’s exactly the kind of edge they need.