Why property is just like the film industry

Since the start of the year the film awards season has been in full swing, finishing last month with the Oscars. I love the immersive experience of cinema and the chance to see new and exciting technologies combined with the best of human endeavour to create wonderful stories (I can wholeheartedly recommend Little Women, Parasite and JoJo Rabbit). While watching the endless film credits, an idea struck me about how the outsiders may see the real estate sector and why this may be one of the barriers to the take-up of technology within the industry. There are thousands of names involved in the creation of a film, often with baffling job titles – key grip anyone? I know that they all work in the entertainment business, but if I wanted to pitch to one of them with an idea that makes their life easier I wouldn’t know where to start. Because I see a finished product, it is easy to assume that the process of making the film was harmonious and that movies are created in a smooth and efficient process. However, despite the gushing speeches from Laura Dern, Renée Zellweger and Brad Pitt, I’m pretty sure that making movies can be as hard work and dysfunctional as the world of property. If credits were to run showing the number of people involved in the ownership, development and operation of even a modest property, it would number thousands of people. I’m sure that there are equally baffling job titles – BIM facilitator, for example. If I am a proptech entrepreneur or commentator then the world of property must be equally confusing and, therefore, frustrating when trying to make an impact. I often read and hear that property companies are the biggest barriers to innovation because they move too slowly and haven’t had to change their product. No doubt some of this is true, but I think it is crucial for proptech start-ups to try and work out where their idea or product will fit into the world of property. For an industry that is based on people and relationships, it may be surprising how little understanding there is between the roles undertaken by key members of the process. For the outsider they can be split into three distinct camps: Ownership of property – the property owner, who owns the land or building, is involved in the collection of rent and decisions to buy, sell or invest in the property. Development and construction of property – people involved in the design, planning, construction and handover of an asset. Management and operation of the property – people involved in the day-to-day running of the building, management of customers and maintaining satisfaction through maintenance and service and amenity. It is easy to assume that we understand everyone’s roles, but the fragmented structure of the industry means that, in fact, there is often a great deal of mistrust and confusion. This leads to inefficiencies and problems, which I’m confident that, in time, proptech can help solve. For example, the lack of understanding and trust between people who build a property and those who operate it are enormous. This leads to the performance gap between the amount of energy a building is designed to consume and how much it actually uses. It is why at GPE we employ experts in all parts of the lifecycle of the property in-house and gives some clues as to how to successfully implement technology into real estate.  If a proptech supplier and an owner can collaborate to help each other understand problems and what issue might need to be solved, then successful implementation can take place. At GPE our people like to work in partnership with our proptech suppliers to both understand their product and then work out how it might fit into our ecosystem. We know that by starting trials on a small scale – say in one building, a floor or a limited part of the portfolio – we can test and evolve the product. For example, the implementation of Sesame, our workplace app, involved four or five people in the beginning. However, by the time it was rolled out to every building in the portfolio, more than a quarter of GPE’s staff had been involved in some way. I intend to use this column to point out some of the potential issues and problems that exist in the property world from a property company perspective and hopefully shine some light on to where problems and, therefore, potential opportunities in proptech might appear. James Pellatt is director of workplace & innovation at Great Portland Estates