In our third episode of Survey Booker Sessions we speak with Andrew Knight, Global Data & Tech Lead from the RICS.
We discuss the evolving world of technology within the surveying industry and topics such as:
✅ What types of tech are coming to market
✅ What’s driving the use of this tech
✅ The need for surveyors / suppliers to work closely
✅ What is preventing adoption
✅ What are the next steps for tech and maturity in the industry
✅ Better ways of holding data
✅ Understanding your business
View on Zencastr
Transcript
SPEAKERS
Matt Nally, Andrew Knight
Matt Nally
On today’s episode, we’ve got Andrew Knight from RICS. So, thank you for coming on, Andrew. You obviously head up the RICS Tech Partner program so you’ve got a great overall oversight of the market and what’s going on in terms of tech. But do you want to give a bit more background about what you do there day to day and how you get involved in the tech side of things?
Andrew Knight 00:49
Yeah, sure. Yeah, so I’ve been with our RICS for nearly 12 years now. And my role, if it doesn’t sound too grandiose, is to look at the implications of data and technology right across the profession, both in the UK and globally, where our members are working and with 110,000 members working now for our member firms. You know, it’s a huge wide range of areas where data and technology are having a really profound effect. So, it’s a tremendously interesting sector. And by working with firms like yourselves on this Tech Partner program, we now have over 250 firms providing data in tech right across the property lifecycle across lots of different assets and in lots of different jurisdictions. So, it’s kind of a privilege in that way to really have that insight about what’s going on in the marketplace, as well as obviously talking to our members and understanding how they’re using technology as well. We’ve seen quite a growth in the number of firms that have come to the tech partner program in the last few months or years.
Andrew Knight 01:46
I think it’s been a fairly steady onboarding of new firms. I think what I’ve seen is just an increase in the variance, if I can use that expression, in terms of the different areas that people are applying technology. And also, indeed, I think as we’re increasingly spreading the word about the program, it’s great to see firms coming in from outside the UK to give us that real insight about how different markets, different jurisdictions are either doing the same things, ironically, or doing different things, depending on the kind of constraints and opportunities that certain jurisdictions have.
Matt Nally 02:22
Interesting. What are you seeing as the general trends in terms of tech, which might be different in commercial and residential, in terms of the types of products coming out at the moment?
Andrew Knight 02:35
It is very varied. And I suppose in that sense, it’s hard to say that there’s one single trend because of that. We have so many areas where surveyors are working, whether it’s different asset types in commercial versus residential. Or indeed, you know, the fact that they’ll be working at different parts of the property lifecycle, whether it’s, you know, physical inspections, part of the construction cycle, or looking at acquiring land for development or valuation, I suppose. What is probably worth highlighting are some of the things that we heard when we did a survey of the tech partners towards the close of calendar 2020. We did some word clouds. And in fact, there’ll be a report coming out in the next couple of months that people can look at. But I guess if I look at some of the kinds of emerging products and emerging technology, what’s interesting is not necessarily the specific products, but perhaps the kind of things that are underlying it in terms of what technology is out there. And the things that jump off this page are things like, the ability to do things remotely, obviously driven by the pandemic, so whether that’s using 360-degree cameras more, whether it’s using more data capture on site that is then fed back to somebody who hasn’t been on site to look at it. If we think of a lot of things that are happening under the kind of bonnet as it was increasing uses of machine learning and various flavors of artificial intelligence to pull datasets together to then present those datasets in quite a compelling visual way. So, there’s a lot of stuff happening under the bonnet of products and solutions that say, actually, they’re using these technologies to really present information joined together, presented visually, and enable information to be gathered in that remote way. It might still involve a human being walking around a site with some kind of camera or data capture device, but that ability to work on assets remotely, and I think so much of that was obviously driven by the IoT, by COVID, and the pandemic. And then, you know, if you think about sort of building maintenance and building operation, clearly, there’s an awful lot of activity not just in new developments but in retrofitting sensors and IoT into buildings to get that kind of sensor data in terms of how the building is operating, how the HVAC might be working, what the temperature is, what the air quality is, and to get that information in a way that can actually help people make decisions about running a property. So, lots of different things, but I guess there are some common themes there about capturing data remotely using machine learning. And using them, particularly, I think, to solve some of the really big problems out there like ESG and stuff like that.
Matt Nally 05:16
I can imagine COVID did have quite a big impact with everyone working remotely and therefore uptake. Are you hearing feedback from surveying firms to yourself in terms of the types of products that are on the tech partner programme and how people are implementing them? Do you do more on the surveying side or the supply side?
Andrew Knight 05:35
I think what’s interesting is the supply side view of the profession and what surveyors want. And I think what’s interesting is, I think there’s been a danger from the tech side where things have been built because they can be built rather than actually because they fulfill a genuine requirement that tech firms be even closer to their customers. It sounds like an obvious statement. But to be closer to really understanding the problems or opportunities that surveyors have, they have to automate and use some kind of data and tech product to solve real-world problems, not just because the technology can be built. And I think linked to that is a sense of making sure that there really is a genuine return on investment if you’re going to buy tech, because, you know, obviously our members are surveyors that are running businesses. So, from that perspective, it’s not tech for tech’s sake; it’s tech because it delivers some real benefits, both for them as the surveyor and for their clients. But that does it in a cost-effective way that actually makes that technology accessible from a price perspective. And that you can actually demonstrate that it does have a return on investment, that it saves time, and that it increases profitability. It increases your ability to win business by increasing the quality of service you can provide. I think it’s a return to their asset, the old-fashioned approach of what will this technology do for my business? What’s the benefit? How easy is it to use? What are the issues around how we implement it? And can we really show a return on investment and perhaps also address some of the problems that, you know, if they’re going to buy a number of different products? Can they all work together? You know, people use the phrase tech stack, if you’re going to get quite pretentious about it, but can you make sure that all these different things actually work together and you don’t end up simply having to rekey information? And I’m always mindful that so many of our RICS members are working in smaller firms, SMEs, microbusinesses, businesses, or as individual practitioners that they need software that’s easy to use. And from that point of view, they don’t have to add complexity to the way they run their business, rather than the reverse. It should be simpler and more elegant for them and their customers. And it should have a return on investment.
Matt Nally 07:54
Yeah, I think that the integration part is the interesting one that you mentioned. As I agree that if IT systems don’t link together, you start to lose the benefit in terms of time spent rekeying information. Or do you miss something because it doesn’t flow from one system to another? And, you know, I suppose on the revenue side, you might miss a request on the commercial side; you might miss that bit of key information that helps you make a decision on something. So yeah, that integration is key. Do you see more and more suppliers connecting up together, or is it still fairly separate?
Andrew Knight 08:26
On the one hand, the number of tech firms out there is great because it shows innovation and creativity and a vibrant sector. But I think there is a recognition now that they have to integrate with other systems. And I thought a good example is where I talk to many tech partners, where part of their overall solution is property management, for example, which involves accounting. So they’ve taken the sensible, obvious route, which is, well, they’re not going to recreate an accounting system. So they’ll deliberately partner with one or more other kinds of mainstream accounting systems and make sure that from day one, their product has an accounting package. But it’s simply by integrating with a best of breed to use the phrase ‘package’ that’s already out there. So I think people are realizing that this integration is important because, you know, there’s probably no single system out there that, you know, will computerize an entire surveying practice or an entire construction firm or whatever. So, there’s this requirement that these systems work together. And it’s particularly around the flows of data; obviously, it has that sort of sense that the data can flow from one system to the next. Or indeed, if they’re looking, particularly in larger firms, for the ability to have analytics, they need to be able to pull these datasets together and give that sort of single pane of glass, as it’s called, that single view of their data, depending on the context and pull that data from multiple systems. I think people are recognizing that they have to have that interoperability, to use that horrible jargon, whose ability is to have data flow around it. And to not reinvent the wheel when it comes to things like accounting systems, just integrate with some of the pre-existing ones out there. But I think it is a challenge for the technology system, the technology sector, not to just build yet more silos of software and more silos of data; it’s got to be more integrated.
Matt Nally 10:15
There’s a limitation on the benefits. But you don’t want to be a tech provider who is the jack of all trades, where you try and build a bit of everything: a bit of accounting, a bit of reporting, a bit of whatever it is. You have to do what you do well, and then it’s better to try and connect with others.
But what do you think are the main reasons for resistance from surveying firms in terms of uptake? Is it that there may be solutions, as you mentioned earlier, that don’t quite offer a solution to a problem? Or is it getting used to a shift in new ways of doing things?
Andrew Knight 10:53
I think that there are a lot of things. And once again, I’ll refer back to a lot of the kinds of comments we had on the survey. And some of it is down to their culture and behaviour. And people are comfortable with the way things are working at the moment. And I think once again, it’s not so much about the technology, about the change management piece here, about people’s thinking. Well, actually, if we are going to change the way we do things by adopting some kind of technology, it’s more of an issue with people about understanding why we’re doing it, what training is required, and what processes might change, because it may well be that, by taking on some kind of data and technology solution, you will be changing your processes to some extent, and that you will need to go with the flow of how this particular solution wants to manage that particular workflow and that particular process. And while you may be changing the way you’re doing things, you’re not changing, ultimately, the work outputs or the kinds of things that you’re producing for your clients. But it may well require that change of mindset. So, I think, in many respects, yes, there are obviously financial barriers of making that initial investment and that kind of potential disruption to a business as you go through that kind of implementation. But I think a lot of it is around the kind of understanding and also the challenge that there are so many solutions out there, how do you choose? How do you go through a proper process of evaluating what you need, what problems it’s going to solve, what the benefits are, and what the return on investment is? And depending on the size of the business, what are the implications of implementing this in terms of perhaps bringing data in from existing spreadsheets or other systems that you may have that you feel aren’t fit for purpose now? So, I think it comes down to the classic business issues of change management: bringing the people with you, training them, implementing it, and being clear about why you’re doing it and what the results should look like. And also perhaps, instead of trying to do a huge, big bang, make incremental improvements to the way your business is working and think about these small additional steps you can take to just digitize your business in that incremental way and show positive returns as you go on that journey.
Matt Nally 12:58
Yeah, it’s an interesting point. I think a lot of the success that you get from a system depends on how much planning you put into it in the first place. And you see a mix of outcomes in terms of whether you just try and jump in straightaway, you don’t set it up, and you try and launch from the get-go versus those that take a bit of time to get familiar, make sure the settings are in place, and understand how they want to link with the processes. That makes a massive difference.
Andrew Knight 13:25
I think, yes, people don’t necessarily invest as much time in that kind of proprietary preparation phase, as it were, to make sure they really understand what the implications are. I think it goes back to the fundamental question of why we do it in the first place, and you should have a really clear idea of why you’re doing it, not just use tech for tech’s sake. As I say, it’s not about tech for tech’s sake; it’s about what does it do in terms of both improving your business and ultimately improving what you can provide to your clients?
Matt Nally 13:56
Yeah. So, what do you think are the opportunities for surveying firms with tech, maybe in terms of customer experience or with efficiencies? Or what do you think are the key areas that tech solutions offer?
Andrew Knight 14:16
Well, once again, it varies incredibly because I think it’s worth it. I think, as you’ve alluded to thinking about the client, how can we provide even better services than we perhaps currently do in terms of the quality of what we’re able to deliver? Are we able to capture datasets that we’ve not been able to capture before? Are we able to deliver the service more quickly? And it shouldn’t just be about speed; quality is incredibly important, but there may be aspects where you can simply say, Yes, we can do this more quickly, because we have the ability to do more of this remotely or we have data sources now that give us the part of the due diligence process that will have taken us a lot longer to do from a manual perspective. So, it may be a combination, hopefully, of using data sources that are now available and using technology. We discussed earlier the ability to do things more remotely, which means that you can simply produce an even higher quality piece of work output, and not necessarily more cheaply, because I believe this is about understanding that there shouldn’t be a race to the bottom by using technologies about technology, almost freeing up surveyors to do more of the value added, because I believe that in an ideal world, what technology should be seen as doing is really kind of automating. Some of the tasks that actually aren’t really what a surveyor should be charging time for or having to do revolve around managing workflows in terms of engagement, production of documents, and data acquisition. If they can have that automated in a way that they can trust, they can then spend their professional time adding that additional value. There’s a danger that people will see technology as kind of deskilling the professional and replacing them. And I think it’s a much more positive message that the combination of technology and the professional is the most powerful piece; it’s actually coupling, the ability of machine learning, data aggregation, and remote data capture to free up the professional to really add value, take away those Dare I say it’s sort of repetitive, mundane tasks that actually frees up the surveyor to do more valuable tasks in that way. And I don’t foresee, in that sense, the surveyor in any way disappearing; quite the opposite, I can see them as the people who correlate and understand the kind of data that they’re working with, have that assurance piece around it, and then really add value by interpreting data. I was talking to a tech partner yesterday in the Far East, and they’re using artificial intelligence combined with drones to look at conditions of facades on very large, multi storey buildings. And what’s interesting is that there is almost a kind of feedback loop where the human judgement of looking at images is used to make the algorithm even more powerful and clever because it’s got that consistent feedback loop of human feedback on new kinds of defects, new kinds of issues with the building, that help the drone understand where to look and what sort of defects to report. So, I think this is real. I think there is opportunity here for technology to work hand in hand with professionals, not to replace each other but to really augment the process. And as I say, allow surveyors to do more surveying?
Matt Nally 17:34
Yeah, I think there’s an extreme example of that in the new AI chat GPT system. Yeah. And on the one hand, you could look at it and say, “Does that now replace writers?” For example, you can get all your ideas and flesh out a whole article or blog post. But the reality is that you can do a very good job. And it can do a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of coming up with the content idea, or looking at some stats, and so on. But the anecdotes—the actual experience within a role—are what we really need to flesh out that piece, and I don’t think it will replace writers; it will just maybe help produce it more quickly, or comedy.
Andrew Knight 18:12
Indeed, I’ve used Chat GPT a few times over the last couple of weeks as a test to understand the quality of what it produces. And of course, I think we also have to recognize that it might not always be correct. From an assurance point of view, I would much prefer if any output from chat GPT was passed across a human desk to check for accuracy and check for, you know, fitness for purpose; I wouldn’t use the output of that in my work. As a professional, I was hoping that it was an interesting source of data about which I could ask some questions and get some starting points for a piece of text that I might want to use. But I’d want to check that and make sure of it. It’s a bit like Wikipedia. It’s interesting, but I wouldn’t place my personal liability on what I found on Wikipedia. So, I think it’s interesting that these things are there to provide input, but there’s still that kind of professional due diligence that just says we’re actually looking at what is not entirely correct. I would phrase that differently. I would add my own layer of due diligence to that and then present that as work output, but I wouldn’t take the raw material and use it in that way, unfiltered.
Matt Nally 19:25
With the automation side, I suppose there’s a lot that can be done around logging different information that is around a job, correspondence, notes, reports, terms, or those kinds of things, but are there things that you, from a governing body perspective, would look for in order to help protect suppliers in terms of making sure that the processes the tech firms are producing are compliant and therefore helping firms, and is tech level something that might be more required in the future in terms of help? To make sure that firms are audit compliant.
Andrew Knight 20:04
There are probably two aspects. There’s one that, if we think about perhaps data and then come back to some of those things you talked about, like terms of engagement. So, from a data perspective, what’s really important is transparency. Particularly if you’ve got these machine learning applications where data is going through a particular model, it’s really important that we recognize that there still has to be that kind of explainability that can interpret the data and really explain where it came from. If one is in any way challenged about a particular piece of work, output, or judgment and you’ve used a certain input, you need to be able to say, “This is where I got my data from.” Yes, it’s fit for purpose—the way the data is being collected. Yes, it may have gone through some data analytics processes, but here’s the kind of backstory to where that data is coming from. It may, for example, be calibrated with some other data sources to make sure that it’s correct. And a good example here is the world of automated valuation. So, I think you’ve got that sense where we want as a professional body to make sure that the fundamentals are still taken on board and that somebody has the ability to explain that theirs work out, but a bit like your math exam, show you’re working, explain where you got the data from, and be confident in the accuracy and the efficacy of the data sources that you’re using for a particular assignment. I think the other area is almost like that conduct piece of things, like producing correct terms of engagement and making sure that they’re stored properly. And once again, there’s an audit trail, like a file trail. So, for things like that, for example, conflicts of interest, I think it’s important from a kind of standard regulatory point of view that tech solutions have that kind of audit function. We say, Okay, well, can you tell me what got set once on a certain date? Where are the file notes? Where’s the history of communication? So, if you do get complaints or issues, you’ve got that full audit trail and can say, “This is what we communicated to the client here. This is what we told them. This is what was agreed upon in terms of the scope of work, these were the issues that came out, and this is what we discussed.” And once again, any kind of initial conflict checks, all those things, just to make sure that from a tech solution, there is that audit trail so we don’t end up with a black box, where we can’t just print out a set of notes and say, “Well, this is the history of this particular project.” So, I don’t think it’s about producing these kinds of black boxes in that sense and having that kind of visibility and the ability to show that sort of audit trail. So, I think it’s kind of an old-fashioned thing. And there are some specific areas like client money handling where, once again, systems need to be developed because they don’t exist in cyberspace, but these are real-world issues in terms of handling money and client accounts. I think it’s just having that mentality; yes, it’s tech. But we’ve got to think about the fact that these are real-world issues; we’re dealing with people’s flows of money and physical assets. So, it’s just keeping it real.
Matt Nally 23:10
Then there’s one of the things you said there and also earlier, as I was making me think about it: what do you think the potential opportunities are for tech? Like, what maybe exists in other industries at the moment that doesn’t exist in the tech landscape for surveyors? And where do you see that going, perhaps?
Andrew Knight 23:29
It’s not so much technology, perhaps as a level of maturity for the sector in terms of more standardization around data so that data flows more easily and so that we have more common formats for various datasets, because obviously, the built environment has huge amounts of data already existing. Unlike other sectors, it is effectively held all through the process, from planning through construction, BIM models, valuations, and physical surveys. Just as a paper might be a PDF or a Word document, we still have a lot of documents that still need to exist because we still need to be able to read and consume them as human beings, but a lot of that doesn’t exist in the kind of structured way that you would see in other sectors. And if you think of the way that manufacturing, aerospace, and car manufacturing work, those are very automated, structured data processes. And arguably, real estate is different in many ways as an asset type. But I think there are these principles that we could take from other sectors to digitize the sector more without losing the human touch without losing output that human beings can digest, but we need that ability to have more structured data to analyze. A good example might be—and there’s a lot of work in this area—where you’re looking at a commercial property from a valuation perspective and property management, the rent roll is incredibly important. Who are the occupiers? What are the terms of the leases? payments back and forth. And if you look at the terms of a lease that have a lot of import in terms of value, whether it comes to rent-free periods, renewals, notice periods, or rent review terms, if that’s just held in a document, that’s very hard to analyze. So, you need to move towards that in a more structured way of holding the data, in addition to having a human-readable form. So, I think it’s not so much specific bits of digital technology as it is actually getting those adopted and embedded more in the real estate sector. And I guess my final comment would include that there are always commercial restrictions around this to some extent, but I think there’s also a sense that if we do have more standardization—in a positive sense that more data can be shared—that there’s more data that flows around in a well-governed ethical way. But that data can actually be shared more easily, so you don’t get a situation where an asset is created. And then you don’t get that data flowing naturally into the operational phase and then into the maintenance and inspection phase. I think it’s about having data flow around more easily, yes, properly governed and ethically controlled. But to have that ability for data to flow around a bit more
Matt Nally 26:04
I’ve often wondered whether we’ll get to a point where the data exists in terms of any property, whether it’s residential or commercial, and you can see everything from the original plans and how it was designed to be laid out to all the work that’s been done and maintenance and changes. So that if you go into inspect, survey, or make some changes to property, you can see everything in terms of its history. I suppose the challenge at the moment is one: it’s a document in PDF format, where you can’t necessarily pull the data out to analyze, but also, who owns that data at the moment? The reports have been produced for a customer; can you then still have that data available for that type of analysis? So that I suppose there might be other challenges there.
Andrew Knight 26:49
I think one of the biggest challenges is the fact that you might be able to achieve this kind of utopian situation with a new bill. But obviously, with the majority of building stock already built, you’re looking at a kind of retrofitting in that sense of trying to get existing information captured, gathered, and recorded in a way, which is not to say that we shouldn’t aim for that. But I think when we think about some of those barriers, and when you talk about a pre-existing survey that has been done and was paid for by a client expert for an asset, I suppose what’s interesting is to understand that the liability might not be able to be shared with other parties. But when somebody perhaps buys that asset, why should they have access to previous surveys that they couldn’t necessarily rely on in a financial sense? But there’s no reason why that couldn’t be shared as a historical document as a fact that actually will, that’s what the last survey said; we don’t own that survey in terms of the ability to go back and complain. If we felt it was wrong, but times we’ve done anyway, and in some respects, a survey from five years ago only has that historical interest. You’d want to do a new survey; you’d want a new maintenance plan, for example. So, I think it’s more of an openness. I think it’s important to understand that data should be shared, but that people also understand the limits and restrictions on what they can do with that data. But I think the ownership piece is an interesting concept, because it’s like, well, when you say you own a survey, for example, what do you mean by owning it? Do you own it in the sense that you have reliance on it because you’ve paid for it? But actually, shouldn’t that flow with the asset? If somebody then buys that asset, shouldn’t they at least have access to read the report, even if they don’t necessarily have the ability to utilize it in some kind of reliance way? So, I think those are issues that the sector needs to understand and not always just use them as a barrier. So now, I can’t show you that report. Or I can’t show you that piece of data. It’s like, Well, why not? And what would we need to structure it in a way to make you think, “Well, yes, we can share it?”
Matt Nally 28:57
Yeah, I suppose it’s exactly like a car mot in that respect. When you buy a car. Yes, you didn’t have the previous mot done, but you can see all the history and what hasn’t been done. Yeah, it’s very interesting. So, I suppose, in terms of other aspects of the Rex Technic programme, what are the goals that you have with Rex in terms of where you want to help? Both, I suppose, in terms of tech partners in terms of adoption and also surveying firms in terms of understanding what’s available to them?
Andrew Knight 29:28
It is about helping our profession understand what’s out there, what the opportunities are, but also realistically some of the risks of using technology, and go into it with your eyes open. And I think, as we touched on earlier, that understanding that it isn’t technology for technology’s sake, it is about getting value from it, understanding what questions to ask potential suppliers, going through a really good due diligence process, and becoming that slightly cliche term, that intelligent customer who understands what they’re buying but also has a really clear idea of what they’re buying it for and what the purpose is, and if they’re looking at data sources and data analytics, what questions do they want to answer? What’s the endgame here? What’s the purpose of it, and then I think also just from a whole sector perspective, making the profession aware that actually this is as much a people and a business issue as it is a technology issue that it’s about, as we’ve discussed, rethinking through how they’re going to use data and technology to make their business run more efficiently and indeed, provide additional services for their clients, and not be afraid of data and tech, understand that it has a real opportunity to automate many of the processes that are still quite manual and still done in a traditional way, and that will open up, as I say, opportunities for surveyors to do more valuable things in that way. And I think, from our perspective, we’re very grateful for the insight we can get by talking to tech partners, because it gives us a huge window on a sector that’s kind of working in parallel with the profession. It’s quite often when we talk to tech partners that we find they have people embedded with them who have real depth in real estate knowledge, as well as people who have technical knowledge. But so much of this innovation is being driven by people from outside the profession that it’s really important for us as a professional body to understand the innovation that’s taking place, as we’ve discussed the barriers and the drivers, and the kind of technology that’s out there. And indeed, to make some of these firms aware of the fact that we are talking about real people and real assets here and that there is a standards framework here that they need to work within, it doesn’t necessarily constrain them, I don’t think, but they need to do, they need to understand that there are standards here, around the way that work output is produced by surveyors. And you can’t just put those standards to one side because we’re in the world of cyber, and it’s still about real people and real assets that have a real impact on the environment and everything else.
Matt Nally 32:00
Yeah, variously. So, do you have two or three top tips for how to go about investigating whether or not you want to implement tech, or if you do, then you have to decide?
Andrew Knight 32:12
I suppose the first thing is to be really clear about what the business case is: what do you think either needs fixing or will give you a competitive edge in terms of producing an even higher level of output for your clients? I think about the business issues first, before you even think about technology, and say, “What are we trying to achieve here? Do we feel that we’re wasting a lot of time on manual processes? Do we feel that our level of, for example, customer service isn’t as good as we would like it to be? We simply don’t have the tools to enable us to talk to our customers on a frequent basis and record what’s going on, whatever the problem might be. Or it might be simply pressures that we need to do; we need to do a certain piece of a project in a shorter time because we are simply reacting to the fee rates and the ability to actually produce the work, and we just need to generate some efficiency. So, I think it’s being really clear about what you’re trying to achieve from a business perspective. And then it’s saying, Okay, now it’s a bit daunting; we have to find a tech supplier who is addressing that particular problem or set of problems. And I think, personally, for a firm that’s really starting on the journey, it’s about simulation; let’s do one thing at a time, let’s think about a particular part of our business where we can see some real returns, where yes, we would have to invest both money and time. And I think it’s thinking about the time aspect, the resource in terms of people, as much as the kind of physical investment, and saying, Okay, let’s go out and find the suppliers out there who are in this space. And I think particularly of the people who can demonstrate as tech suppliers, as I alluded to earlier, that they’re not just technical people, they’ve got a real understanding of real estate, they really understand the practice area, so hopefully they’ve got people within their business who not only can write great code and use technology, but who have a genuine understanding of the sector and can walk in the shoes of the customer in that way. So I think that’s what I would say is,
– Focus first on the business problems or business issues
– Understand the level of change management you’d need to do to get these that this change of working these systems in
– Find suppliers who really, genuinely understand that you’re part of the surveying business, because obviously, there are hundreds of firms out there producing prop tech type solutions, but it catches the best of breed who understand your particular kind of business and also the size of business you are. Find a supplier who’s comfortable working with perhaps a smaller business and isn’t just necessarily supplying to large corporates, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s about finding people who can work with a supplier who’s comfortable working with and who has that knowledge of your domain to really understand how to make it work for you. And I’d say, maybe start small. Just look at one area where you could use some technology to get some quick wins, and I think that builds the confidence to say, “Yes, we can use technology, we can implement it reasonably quickly, and we can see some return straightaway.”
Matt Nally 35:09
I think they’re very nice points. Actually, I think that by having that plan as the first base of what you’re trying to achieve, you can actually very easily go to market and understand, Okay, what I’m looking at, does it provide what I’m looking for in terms of those angles? And I think the other part is that it doesn’t have to be this daunting and revolutionize everything in one go. You can take the bits, and I think the important part then is looking at whether the solution then offers the opportunity to scale and grow with the other aspects that you’re going to want to add in later. Because obviously they don’t, you don’t want the hassle of them having to change solutions as you go, but there’s a very good point. And then obviously, by having again that starting point, you can then measure it later on, once you’ve implemented it, to see if it’s achieving the goals that you set out for. And then what can you tweak, adjust, or change to achieve it?
Andrew Knight 36:01
Indeed, and I think some of the challenges that you do need to be thinking ahead about and thinking well about are: if we buy this, if we then didn’t make the next move, would this work with something else? So, you do need to be thinking ahead. But I think particularly now, given the economic background, any investment has to be really thought through, and any kind of potential disruption to the business by taking time out of the business to do these things and implement them, has to be really thought through. People obviously have businesses to run that they want to keep going and have that continuity. So, I think people need to be really thoughtful about this. But also recognize that there are opportunities here and be able to realize that having worked in the tech sector for a long time, you may need to slightly change the way you work, not in the sense that you’ll deliver less quality or less work output. But some of the ways you’ve been doing things may need to change if you automate them, and to a large extent, it’s a bit of a cliche, but if you have a process that isn’t particularly elegant and you just insist that it be made a digital process, all you get is an inelegant digital process. So, there is sometimes that sort of humility required. So, we’ll actually change the way we do things to work with this technology; the output will be of the right quality, and we will achieve the same things we wanted to achieve. But we are going to do things slightly differently because that’s the way the tech does it. And actually, if we’re honest with ourselves, it’s a better way of doing it.
Matt Nally 37:26
There’s an interesting conversation I’ve had a few times, which is where the value is added. If you’re doing admin tasks instead of actual analysis and then you’re focusing on things where you’re not really adding value, and it should really be automated if it can be. But I think sometimes there’s a potential hesitancy that if you’re automating something, it’s taking value away rather than actually giving you more time to focus on the actual bit where you’re adding values.
Andrew Knight 37:59
I think that there’s also a fear sometimes that automation is sort of cold and unfriendly from a customer service perspective. And I think people are also realising that there are certain things they are happy to have automated, but there are certain things where they want to pick up the phone and have a chat with you. So, I think it’s that balance of saying that people will be very amenable to having certain parts of the process automated. There’s no reason why people will object to that just coming out automatically from a system that simply does that as part of the workflow. But they won’t actually want to automate the fact that they will want to speak to you at certain points of the process. So, automation isn’t a cold, unfriendly thing. No tight view of automation, it should be more about automating the tasks that can be automated, and people are very happy in other walks of life and other areas of their lives to accept our automated, but returning almost frees up the space for more human contact. Because the irony is in different contexts, I’ve talked to people who’ve used approaches that are actually deliberately designed to automate and actually allow more time for human contact and human interaction with clients. So that you actually have more time to have that sort of automated contact with your clients. So, it’s an irony that automation can actually make the experience more human.
Matt Nally 39:21
That’s a very interesting point of discussion. I have quite a lot to say about it, which is that automation isn’t binary. It’s not either no automation and personal contact, or only automation and chatbots. And not being able to speak, so that’s exactly the point if you’re not spending five minutes creating an invoice and sending the email out. But exactly the same content can be sent out on an automated basis, and then you’ve got five minutes back to have a conversation with the customer on the phone about something else.
Andrew Knight 39:52
And I think it’s also thinking about automation as a choice in the sense that, actually, both sides have a choice about which pieces feel appropriate to be automated and which pieces should retain that genuine kind of human interaction.
Matt Nally 40:06
That’s all been really interesting to discuss today. So, thank you very much for coming on, Andrew, and I look forward to speaking again soon about it. It’s been a pleasure.