VTS - A help to the growth of our leasing production
Rating: 10 out of 10
March 04, 2019
DB
Vetted Review
Verified User
2 years of experience
VTS is being used as the primary leasing tool for my Leasing Representatives (all of whom are in-house), and the primary management tool for me as the Director of Leasing. It is a key source of pipeline information for our executives, who can get real-time updates as well as daily email digests of deals that are active in the pipeline. Leasing is the only department that is adding data and updates to VTS, while other departments, such as Finance, Asset Management, and Business Management utilize VTS as an information source.
One of the largest business issues it addresses is speed of information throughout the organization. Rather than emails, calls, or meetings, I can see what is going on with active deals and available spaces from my desktop, phone, or tablet. My COO also looks to VTS for information on activity. It provides a single reference point for leasing deals, and brings transparency and awareness when there are snags,and when there are successes.
One of the largest business issues it addresses is speed of information throughout the organization. Rather than emails, calls, or meetings, I can see what is going on with active deals and available spaces from my desktop, phone, or tablet. My COO also looks to VTS for information on activity. It provides a single reference point for leasing deals, and brings transparency and awareness when there are snags,and when there are successes.
- Pipeline activity tracking - real time information at every user's fingertips.
- Deal analytics - provides quick computations on key deal metrics. If all of the data is entered in, the work that used to be done manually or not at all appears immediately, so assessments and adjustments can be made quickly.
- History of the deal - each note or proposal is stored in a single place, where it can be referenced, which can be a big help on deals that are complicated and have a great deal of back and forth. You don't have to search through emails in a folder.
- Tenant Relationship Manager puts all of the leases and deals with a given tenant on a single page, so you can quickly see information on your key tenants, when current leases expire, and what deals are in the pipeline.
Cons
- VTS is still growing in its features on retail properties. As a product that originated in the office and broker world, it has had a learning curve for shoppiong centers. It has made great progress in the 2+ years we've been on the system, and there is more to come.
- The defaults for the dashboards go into a longer time frame than how we look at production and leasing activity. We are year-to-date driven, and that view isn't readily available on the dashboards.
- We are still working on getting Deal Approval flow active in our organization. We have a two-round approval process, and VTS currently is structured for a single approval round. We are finding ways to make it work, but it's still a workaround.
- We believe that VTS has improved our cycle times from prospect to tenant, which leads to rents being received sooner.
- VTS has organized the work of our Leasing Representatives. They no longer have to operate from spiral notebooks and Post-it Notes to keep track of their deals.
- By needing less meeting time, the Leasing Reps can spend more time prospecting and working deals, and less times repeating information.
We looked at a number of products when making the decision to go with VTS. What we found was that most of the other products in the space were either real estate addons to SalesForce, or an additional module to a software that was focused on another use, like accounting or property management. VTS was the only product we reviewed that was born, bred, and focused on commercial real estate. It became apparent that it was best in breed at the time, and they have been aggressive at making product enhancements and continuous improvement to stay the leader in their space.