Software and Technology Use in the Real Estate Sector

Investor Challenges

In the video accompanying the first of three reports, entitled Investor Challenges, Dolphin Square Foundation chief executive Brian Ham and Qube Global Software chief executive John Cuppello discuss how technology can help overcome challenges in the investment sector. Read excerpts from the interviews below:

Brian Ham

Why do you think some property investors appear to be sceptical of technology?

Well, parts of the industry can be quite traditional. Relationships, trust are really important. But I think a new, younger generation are starting to adapt really well. There are some good new consumer-facing tools on the web in particular, which are really good.

Should systems to help adhere to property regulation and legislation be a given within organisations?

Yes, systems to adhere to regulations should be a given within organisations. The regulatory framework can get very complicated but there are some very good web-based applications, which allow you to cut through and find out which of the regulations are immediately relevant to your situation.

It is clear that enhancing customer service is a challenge for investors. How do you think software and technology can help?

Software and technology can help improve our relationship with our residents. We’re developing with our managing agents a really good tenant portal. And through the portal they can do everything from telling us they need a repair doing, they can check their rent payments, they can find out how their appliances in their apartment work — a whole range of things.

In what way could software or technology better facilitate joint venture working or working with agents?

Well, it gives us a stronger database, a stronger platform to understand either the investment basis for a decision or the relationship that our managing agent is having with our residents.

So, for example, we can see if there are problems, we can track the extent to which the portal is being used, we can easily check on whether rent payments are up to date. So, it just gives us a better platform from which to make objective decisions about how well relationships are working.

What are the key things you will consider next time you invest in software?

The keys things we consider when investing in software are: can it reduce our cost base? Or can it add value to the things that we do? We’re a relatively small player in a big commercial world in London, so we have to be on our toes and use the best technology that we can find to establish competitive advantage.

John Cuppello

Why did you commission the research?

We actually deliver a full range of solutions to investors, end users, service providers, facilities, managers, so we put quite a lot of investment ourselves into the development of those different solutions; we release a new version every year. So, it’s quite important for us to make sure that the development we are doing is actually what the industry requires.

For you, what was the most interesting result to have come out of the research?

There may be a theme that’s developed, especially in this investment section, where people may not be getting the full advantage out of the software solutions that they’re already using, and this may indicate that they’re not engaging with their software supplier in the correct way.

We would encourage a partnership approach, where the customer pushes the supplier to fully explain the full range of the solution and enable the end user to get the maximum benefit from it.