At the beginning of a new year and decade, property’s leading lights reveal their hopes, expectations and resolutions for 2020 in the second of a two-part special.
Guy Harrington
Chief executive, Glenhawk
I am optimistic 2020 will bring more stability and hope to gradually grow the business, building on the £100m we have lent in the last 19 months and hopefully lending a further £100m in 2020.
We have worked hard to maintain professionalism in this specialist lending market, emulating the practices of institutional lenders. We would like to see our peers adopting a similar approach to help improve the reputation of the industry.
We expect to grow the team to support our additional funding lines and introduce new mortgage products for our clients. From an industry perspective, we expect to see further growth in alternative finance as clients continue to demand a level of speed and quality that traditional banks struggle to deliver.
With the number of lenders shrinking, we should see some consolidation in the market with challenger banks. We also expect growth in the high-value prime central market, which could spread across the country.
Resolutions: To spend more time meeting interesting people from other industries as well as my own and use what I have learned from them to build the business.
I’d like to further support employee wellbeing, ensuring the team feel motivated and inspired to work at the company.
On a personal level, I’d like to support my local community by choosing to buy more from local businesses. I should also probably commit to spending less time in the Goat pub!
Steve Norris
Director, Incendium
Customer expectations of workspace have evolved. This throws down the gauntlet for CRE teams to deliver engagement, experience and change. This is particularly challenging when the tools required to measure these new areas for CRE strategy are still in BETA, but this is a market-wide challenge and the teams that crack this are going to win big.
Occupiers remain frustrated and constrained by the slow pace of change in the property sector. It will take a change in financing requirements and valuation approaches to really unlock the shift to truly innovative ways of providing workspaces. Will 2020 be the year this happens?
My expectation for 2020 is that data will remain top of the agenda and traditional companies need to work out how they adopt the tech company mindset to monetise the insights from that data. The same will apply to CRE – expect to see more collaboration and lateral thinking as innovative upstarts challenge the big beasts.
There is no doubt that CRE will need to continue to open itself up to data expertise from outside the industry, not only to mine the data but to derive valuable insights from its findings.
We expect to see a radical shift in approach as we start to measure the more humanistic elements of the workplace.
Resolutions: To put people first. In a world of data and metrics, it’s easy to treat the occupier or supplier as a commodity. If we all strive to build solutions that enable people to thrive, the benefits will follow. Helping people to build long-term mutually beneficial relationships is where it’s at.
Matt Coulson
Chief executive, Chiswick Park Enjoy-Work
We hope to continue to attract and retain great companies and brands on our campus and that our focus around wellbeing will help further increase the productivity of our guests. We’re also focusing on making our guest experience programme, including our events, sports and concierge services, bigger and better than ever.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of our campus and we are expecting a host of celebrations. We also anticipate new companies moving in, bringing our total of number of guests working on site daily to more than 10,000.
Resolutions: To revolutionise the enjoyment of work through a step-change in our events programme and marginal gains across a host of other initiatives throughout the business.
Steven Gray
Director of retail, Global Mutual
We expect the current pace of evolution in retail to continue, as brands reinvent themselves to adapt to dramatic changes in consumer behaviour.
As this affects real estate strategies and requirements for many high street brands, it is likely we’ll see a further increase in distressed space hitting the market. Asset managers need to work harder than ever before – the boots-on-the-ground approach and relationships with retailers will prove essential to maintaining the resilience of any retail environment.
There is no magic solution – maintaining a keen understanding of what brands need from their representation within centres, parks, outlets and towns is key, as is keeping shoppers interested and engaged. Value, quality, choice and convenience remain the pillars of healthy retail environments, as will a keen focus on experience and amenity in this new service economy.
Continue to part 15 here
2020 vision: predictions for the year ahead
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2020 vision: predictions for the year ahead (part 14)
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