Context
An operating budget and forecasting system for CapitaLand’s properties in China, based on units, leases and actual income and expenses. Bulk forecasts generate operating scenarios, while detailed budgets build annual operating plans unit by unit and month by month. Budget monitoring continuously tracks differences between actual results and plans.
What I worked on
Technical lead, leading the technical development and ongoing iteration of this system.
Approach
Modules are organised around planning, execution and monitoring. Data governance prepares baseline data, bulk forecasts generate scenarios from the top down, detailed budgets build plans from the bottom up, and budget monitoring brings actual results back for comparison with plans.
Selected details
Data governance: Connect to CapitaLand’s data platform and perform a full daily conversion of project, unit, lease and operating data into a calculation baseline. Validate imported data as a batch and reject the whole batch if any item fails.
Outcome
The system was delivered and has operated reliably for years, continuing to support operating budgets and forecasts for CapitaLand China’s shopping centres, offices and business parks.
My responsibilities
- Data research: Investigate the sources, definitions and interfaces of CapitaLand’s data platform, and handle data conversion and validation against common definitions before it enters the system.
- Technical architecture: Select technologies and lead the architecture design of the overall system and individual services.
- Core development: Define standard interfaces between modules, develop core frontend components and package core libraries for use across business services.
- Team management: Assemble and manage the engineering team, assigning responsibilities and managing development progress and release schedules.
- Development and delivery: Establish development and operations workflows, lead development, testing and launch, and oversee subsequent iteration.