Bridging the Gap: The Value of Intelligence in Real Estate Engagement

Throughout my career I have always noticed a variable consistent across the industry, the intersection of intelligence and real estate has presented unique challenges, as both industries operate with a high-tempo and infrequent down periods.

Historically, real estate professionals have lacked access to granular local intelligence to address market risks and geopolitical shifts, while intelligence practitioners have overlooked the valuable insights real estate teams offer in site selection. This disconnect has limited opportunities for collaboration that could mitigate risks, improve market positioning, and drive smarter investment decisions in an increasingly volatile global landscape.

Instead, we will focus on two key pillars that are critical to building strong, enduring, and action-oriented relationships—relationships that not only enhance enterprise security but also ensure that real estate teams remain well-informed at every step.

1. Informed Site Selection and Facility Management

When I was selected to head ServiceNow Global Intelligence Program, I realized quickly that Real estate teams bring invaluable expertise when it comes to identifying and evaluating physical locations for corporate assets. Their detailed understanding of market trends, local demographics, and property value dynamics served as a strong foundation for site selection and emboldened me with knowledge I hadn't been exposed to previously. However, I thought, how can we improve integrating intelligence-driven insights into this process and better elevate decision-making to a more holistic and strategic level, enabling a more metrics driven review of risks and opportunities.

By collaborating closely with real estate teams, intelligence professionals can provide critical OSINT on factors that are often overlooked or not as granular during traditional market assessments. This includes evaluating crime rates, local socio-political stability, proximity to critical infrastructure (e.g., transportation hubs, power grids, and emergency services), and emerging geopolitical risks that could impact business continuity.

Ultimately, by integrating real estate expertise with intelligence-driven risk assessments, organizations can ensure that site selection aligns with broader enterprise safety goals, while also enabling real estate teams to confidently make decisions that account for both immediate needs and long-term risks. This collaboration allows for the intelligence team to have a ownership stake in the process, ensuring end to end site selection reviews.

2. Comprehensive Annual Risk Assessments

Collaboration between real estate teams and intelligence professionals enables a holistic approach to risk assessment, integrating both physical and threat intelligence to provide a more nuanced understanding of vulnerabilities. Real estate teams contribute vital insights into the physical environment, including building structures, local surroundings, and logistical factors, while intelligence teams analyze external threats such as geopolitical instability, and emerging criminal activities.

This combined perspective allows organizations to uncover risks that may go unnoticed when physical and geopolitical threats are assessed in isolation. For instance, a building's proximity to critical infrastructure, such as power grids or communication hubs, might pose physical risks if those systems are targeted in an attack, while also increasing the likelihood of related office vulnerabilities. Similarly, areas prone to natural disasters may require additional physical security measures to prevent data loss or operational disruptions during recovery efforts.

Real estate teams also provide granular information about local environments, such as trends in neighborhood safety, socio-economic conditions, and the reliability of nearby infrastructure. This knowledge is invaluable when layered with intelligence on regional or global threats, enabling the organization to better assess the cumulative risks to employees, assets, and operations.

The Way Ahead: Strong Partnerships in a Risk Heavy Future

When we foster these strong relationships with real estate teams, it significantly enhances the effectiveness of threat intelligence programs. By integrating the physical insights of real estate professionals with intelligence-driven analyses, organizations can implement cohesive security strategies that span site selection, facility management, incident response, and comprehensive risk assessments.

By utilizing our fellow real estate partners early and often, we not only build that critical trust between teams, but also harness the collaborative power of teams working in unison to mitigate risk and most importantly provide safe working spaces for our employees.