Property company signs up for OPM

By ADAM GIFFORD

Property management company Knight Frank has made a deal with Ofek Technologies to lease the OPM Boston management software on an "application service provider" basis.

OPM is a New Zealand-developed management and financial system for residential, commercial, industrial and retail property portfolios.

It is used by more than 40 organisations, including councils, Government agencies, large property investment companies and property managers.

Ofek Technologies' managing director, Yavin Orian, said the ASP or "apps on tap" model opened up the market.

Organisations such as regional councils, Government departments and smaller investment companies which could not justify the cost of a professional property management system now had access to a high end product, he said.

Knight Frank, a subsidiary of listed hotelier and residential developer CDL Group, will use OPM Boston to manage more than 4500 commercial, industrial, residential and rural properties, worth more than $500 million, around the country.

They include the portfolios of Transit New Zealand, Mobil Oil and the Office of Treaty Settlements.

The new chief executive of Knight Frank, Bill Miller, said his company wanted to contract out its IT requirements and concentrate on property management.

Moving to the lease arrangements cuts the capital costs of buying, modifying and supporting associated with complicated software. The company previously used an MS Dos version of the software in-house.

Mr Miller said employees and clients would be able to use the new system through a virtual private network to check information such as vacancy levels, arrears status, regional statistics and financial position.

Ofek Technologies launched OPM in 1989. OPM Boston is the latest version. Mr Orian said his company now intended to enter the Australian market.