Photo: Erik Hannemann Text: Grethe Rønningen s360
The Norwegian-developed app Izy has simplified the operation and rental of buildings for Höegh Eiendom.
“The app is easy to use and caters to most of the needs of both us and the tenants,” says Lene Busund at Höegh Eiendom.
With many rental properties in Oslo, Ski and Moss, it is important for Höegh Eiendom to make everyday life as seamless and simple as possible, both for itself and its tenants. The company therefore wanted a platform that could meet the need for both communication, information, commerce and booking in a digital everyday life.
“Previously, we had several applications and systems to solve these tasks, but with the application of Izy we have brought everything together in one place,” says Lene Busund, Head of Technology and Customer Experience at Höegh Eiendom.
Izy App is adapted to each building and tenants can use the app for many different purposes:
The tenants also report back that they are satisfied with the current solution, according to Lene Busund. The feedback tells of users who find the app easy to use, and they like, among other things, that there are few taps to get to the payment solution. Here they can choose between paying by Vipps, card or invoice to the company.
The fact that the app is easy to use is important. If there are too many pressures, you lose customers on the road,” says Busund. She adds that it was also easy to install and put the solution into use.
“We have been using Izy 2.0 in a number of buildings for almost three years. Now we use Izy 3.0 in the Park Quarter in Oslo, and this was a somewhat larger integration,” she says. Busund says that Parkkvartalo was the first build to use the 3.0 version of the application. Together with Sodexo, Höegh Eiendom was also the first to become a canteen supplier at Izy.
“Then a completely new layout had to be set up in the back of the accounting program of the canteen supplier. This was a slightly larger operation, but here too we think it went very well,” she says.
“Another thing I like about Izy is that the platform is scalable. It is forward-looking and flexible, and Izy wants to integrate it towards third parties,” says Busund. She adds that there are naturally many solutions, but previous experience has shown that most similar solutions have some, but not everything one needs.
“For example, many other real estate applications do not have a full-fledged payment solution against the canteen companies and their financial systems at the back end, while Izy adapts to everyone's financial systems. It allows us to integrate it into all our buildings in the long term. We want to standardize on the entire portfolio, and currently we are using Izy on eight of our buildings,” she says.
The fact that they also experience the solution of Izy as stable is another plus.
It has a very high uptime. In addition, when it was easy to implement and easy to use in everyday life, we find that Izy works very well for what we use it for,” says Busund.
In the long term, Höegh Eiendom also wants to integrate more service services into the app, such as access control.
“For us, it's great not having to have multiple third-party systems to deal with, and for our tenants it's convenient to only have to deal with one app. Also, considering GDPR, it is positive to have only one place where data is collected,” she says. With the app, Höegh Eiendom also has the ability to send out push notifications to everyone in the building, which Busund sees as a great advantage.
“That way we can reach everyone at the same time if, for example, there is a fault with an elevator or other critical infrastructure. Previously, this message had to go via a contact person at the tenant,” she says.
