An opportunity for tech innovation

Our industry can’t expect to keep doing the same things yet expect better results. There must be rigid process conformance alongside the accelerated adoption of technology-led solutions to rectify any failings.

Ultimately, property professionals are not IT experts, so we can’t expect to move forward without adding the specialist tech skills to address problems that have never been tackled before.

The customer is now rightly demanding more transparency, and in today’s highly unpredictable times you can hardly blame them. The technology is now there to ensure they are armed with the control they need via real-time transparency that is available on any device.

This can aid business continuity and efficiency throughout the property management and maintenance supply chain. Automating business processes in support of ‘planned’ or ‘reactive’ attendance can make all the difference. Connecting customers directly with engineers to offer an Uber-style response service can revolutionise the way services are delivered throughout the chain.

Efficiency and transparency are pivotal when managing such data, which can be instantly shared between parties, and information accessed at any time. Facility and property managers also need this data at their fingertips.

And as tech-savvy millennials join the workforce, intuitively competent with technology, they are going to want and expect this level of transparent access. We took all of this into account as we identified what skills our own business needs in the future.

Historically, even the simplest of tasks required facility managers to contact service personnel several times. Booking an engineer would involve multiple phone calls between the two parties. Deploying tech-enabled business-process automation across the property management supply chain will vastly improve the customer experience.

Steve McGregor is group managing director of DMA Group