BLUE SPRINGS, MO—It's been a little over 18 months since CCIM and Xceligent (both GlobeSt.com Thought Leaders) shook hands on a comprehensive agreement to raise the level of information available to CCIM members. (For GlobeSt.com's exclusive coverage of the agreement, click here.) Chris Andrew, Xceligent operations president for CCIM Tech/STDB, sat down with us recently to discuss exactly what has happened since the agreement was forged. He works with CCIM leaders to continue to sharpen the competitive edge CCIM members have through the use of an ever-expanding technology platform.

The core of the platform is STDB—Site to do Business, a web portal that provides robust geospatial mapping tools and extensive demographic data. "When we partnered with CCIM, we agreed to be the technology services provider responsible for STDB.com," says Andrew. "We have a dedicated tech team that continuously evolves the web portal and we provide dedicated customer support to members who use the site."

The key here is continuous improvement, and Andrew reports that enhancements to the site since hands were shaken have, well, shaken up the traditional way of analyzing and presenting data. This includes such recent enhancements as Business List. Rolled out this past summer, it's "powered by Database USA and gives members access to more than 16 million business records and over 100 million contact records," says the operations president, providing complete, downloadable contact information that can be filtered by business type, geography and even zip code.

Access to a variety of ESRI applications has also been enhanced. ESRI is a leading supplier of geographic information system software, web GIS and geodatabase management applications. (For more on CCIM's use of ESRI, please click here.)

STDB also provides CCIMers aerial imagery for analysis and superior marketing materials. "It's a little different than the bird's-eye view you would get on Google or Bing," says Andrew. "It's high-resolution imagery produced from a fleet of more than 70 planes that keep the imagery up to date. Plus they provide 360-degree views so users can study the imagery from different angles."

One of the latest enhancements is Express Center, which provides finished marketing reports based on certain input parameters. "They can input those key parameters and generate reports for their marketing materials and save members the time it takes to generate reports." Xceligent will be integrating with its CommercialSearch platform, expected sometime in the first half of 2016. This will allow CCIM members to access their superior demographic analysis toolset with CommercialSearch, where they can overlay a national property universe of active sale and lease listings.

Another major benefit of the relationship between CCIM and Xceligent is that CCIM designees receive a discount on Xceligent's CDX and CommercialSearch applications. In addition, Xceligent's participation in the data and commercial real estate data sector provides the opportunity to leveerage its awareness and business relationships. "We work with third parties to provide access to additional applications that members would otherwise have to go out and pay for separately," says Andrew.

And there's more to come. Not only is Xceligent retooling the STDB.com website, but "over the past two years we've been redesigning our technology platform from the ground up, and we're pretty excited about it because it will not only allow us the ability to do more integration with STDB, but it's also going to provide a platform for innovation in general in the CRE technology space."

And that is innovation that drops directly into the pockets of CCIM members around the world.