Process & Operational Excellence Manager – Real Estate

About the Role:

The Process & Operational Excellence Manager- Real Estate is responsible for optimizing and re-engineering RAKEZ’s end-to-end leasing and real estate portfolio management processes across a diversified asset base spanning land, warehouses, office space, labour accommodation, and retail.

CORE RESPONSIBILITIES:

Real Estate Process Optimization & Value Stream Design

• Own the end-to-end mapping and re-engineering of leasing and portfolio management value streams across all asset classes- land, industrial/warehouse, commercial/office, labour accommodation and retail.
• Map current-state (“as-is”) real estate and leasing processes, quantify inefficiencies, and design optimized “to-be” processes that eliminate non-value-add activities, manual handshakes and rework.
• Optimize the full lease lifecycle - enquiry, availability and space planning, offer, contracting, activation, billing, renewal, amendment, termination and handover.
• Drive improvements in asset utilization, occupancy, vacancy management and revenue realization across the portfolio.
• Standardize processes for allocations, sub-leasing, fit-outs, handovers and asset lifecycle events across the estate.

Real Estate Systems & Technology Enablement

• Act as the lead business process stakeholder in defining requirements for a fit-for-purpose real estate / asset management system, translating business ambition into functional and process requirements.
• Assess the current SAP RE-FX (RFEX) leasing capability against business needs, identify gaps, and shape the roadmap toward an integrated real estate management platform.
• Partner closely with IT, who are accountable for solution delivery, to ensure the Process team’s “to-be” processes and value streams are correctly embedded in the target system.
• Define data models, master data governance and process controls required for accurate real estate and lease data.
• Ensure seamless integration of real estate workflows with SAP ERP (finance, billing) and Salesforce CRM (customer and leasing front-end).

Productivity & Turnaround Time (TAT) Improvement

• Establish TAT baselines and targets for key leasing and real estate processes (e.g., lease activation, renewal, amendment, handover) and drive improvement.
• Reduce manual touchpoints and handshakes across leasing and portfolio workflows through automation and process simplification.
• Build TAT and productivity trends month-on-month, call out anomalies, and recommend corrective actions.
• Conduct DILO (Day in the Life Of) studies for real estate and leasing teams to build elemental work-content estimates and identify optimization opportunities.

Data, Reporting & Decision Support

• Build baseline metrics and dashboards for portfolio performance, occupancy, yield, lease TAT, revenue leakage and asset utilization.
• Conduct profitability and cost analysis of real estate operations, and present findings and recommendations to senior management for real estate planning and investment decisions.

Process Re-Engineering & Continuous Improvement

• Apply Process Re-engineering and Lean Six Sigma methodologies to customer journey improvement.
• Build and sustain a continuous improvement culture within the real estate and leasing functions, and coach stakeholders on process improvement principles.
• Benchmark real estate operating models and best practices across leading developers and asset managers.

QUALIFICATIONS, EXPERIENCE & SKILLS:

Educational & Professional Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, Real Estate, Business, Data Science, Operations Research or a related field; equivalent areas with suitable experience considered.
• A master’s degree (e.g., Real Estate, Business, Engineering) is a plus.
• 6 to 10 years of relevant experience, including substantial hands-on real estate process/operations experience.

Real Estate Domain Expertise (Essential)

• Proven real estate process optimization experience gained at leading real estate developers, asset/property managers, REITs, developers of economic/industrial zones, or top-tier consulting firms.
• Strong understanding of the leasing lifecycle, portfolio and asset management, and real estate operations across multiple asset classes (land, industrial, commercial, residential/labour accommodation, retail).
• Hands-on experience with real estate / property management systems (SAP RE-FX, Yardi, VTS, MRI, Planon, Archibus, IWMS or equivalent), including requirements definition and implementation.

Process, Technology & Analytics

• Strong expertise in process re-engineering, with experience in cost, profitability and ROI analysis.
• Experience defining “to-be” processes and system requirements and partnering with IT on system selection and implementation.
• Working knowledge of SAP ERP and Salesforce CRM, and adept at applying agile methodologies to transformation projects.
• End-to-end experience applying analytics to business problems; data science exposure is a plus.

Personal Characteristics

• Ability to communicate complex results to technical and non-technical audiences, with strong storytelling and presentation skills.
• Self-driven, collaborative, curious and creative; comfortable in diverse, cross-functional teams within a dynamic environment.
• Confident, energetic self-starter with strong moderation and stakeholder management skills.