Koll's investment in technology has been a distinguishing competitive advantage. In response to new customer requirements, Koll's Information Services Group realized that asset and portfolio management systems were becoming the key components in the arsenal of analytical decision support systems. While striving to provide benchmarking and establish best practice standards for clients, Koll chose Minicom's Asset & Portfolio Management System as their vehicle.

Minicom's solution was based on the concept of a "Data Warehouse" to provide users with all the information possible to make the right decisions. Property and facility management systems today do not contain every piece of information required by asset managers. Because Koll has a multitude of information scattered across corporate mainframe systems, remote property sites, spread-sheets, micro databases, word processors, and valuation packages, they had a need to gather all of this information and store it in one centralized repository -- the Minicom Data Warehouse.

The Minicom Asset & Portfolio Management System not only stores information, but also allows users to easily access data on accounting, lease administration, property budgets, competitive surveys, 10 year discounted cash flows, space planning, work orders and extensive market research. With such a complexity of information, the Minicom system enables users to organize and summarize specific data to produce customized reports and perform specialized analysis. Users can choose from a number of Minicom software tool kits to extract, sort, evaluate, and analyze information. In addition, the Minicom system can be easily integrated with other EIS, Decision Support or even geographical information programs to view data on a detailed summarized, exception or territorial basis.

Minicom's Asset & Portfolio Management System is a competitive tool that provides Koll's Information Services Group's internal and external clients with enhanced information processing and state-of-the-art technology. "With Minicom's Asset & Portfolio Management System, Koll can provide `Lead Systems' Vendor' capabilities by enabling institutional and corporate clients to access information from multiple property and facility managers through a single integrated source," said Steve Sutherland, Chief Information Officer of Koll's Information Services.

Founded in 1977, Minicom Data Corporation designs sophisticated software systems to serve the Real Estate, Property Management and Asset Management marketplaces, with clients throughout Canada, the U.S., Bermuda, and the Pacific Rim. Its client base manages a wide range of Real Estate portfolios exceeding $100 billion in assets. Its product line encompasses complete turnkey systems, to client server open systems and numerous software productivity tools.