Building tech equity: creating the right strategy

22 October 2024

Rob Stark, Senior Executive Director Property Management Strategy & Operations at MAPP, explores how to begin implementing tech equity in Locale's 'Tech Equity in Real Estate'. Building and maintaining a sustainable business means looking to the future and being willing to translate it into our services. Technology, innovation and investment are inseparable strands of our approach to V4 property management and are essential to adding value for clients and their occupiers.

We believe that the future of real estate is the physical augmented by the virtual, and the best spaces will balance both aspects to ensure better experiences for all stakeholders. Smarter and more integrated design, planning, delivery, maintenance and retrofitting of buildings means improved returns on investment. MAPP’s approach to property management has always been founded on democratic principles of service delivery, and this holds true for technology, where we have implemented an ecosystem of technological options designed to support,
augment and enhance our people’s ability to deliver the best.

That means curating solutions that are both able to scale as the MAPP business continues to grow but that are also appropriate for the site and the occupiers, and not a “one size fits all” rollout of products that may not provide the best outcomes in all cases.

In that respect, the evolution of SaaS over the last decade has meant that most companies, regardless of size, are able to compete on an even playing field, and this provides far wider opportunities for the selection of the most
appropriate delivery mechanism.

Importantly, this also means that MAPP is able to hold true to the principle of being equitable with service delivery to its assets. The best technologies shouldn’t be only available to the biggest buildings or newest sites, and a critical component of ensuring high standards of delivery across the board is the implementation of technology- informed solutions regardless of scale.

The complexity and sheer variety of buildings under management don’t always mean that this approach is straightforward, but we continue to invest in and partner with leading technology providers to ensure that our clients and their occupiers have access to the most advanced, reliable and suitable solutions wherever possible.

Engaging with occupiers in a variety of different ways is absolutely crucial, and MAPP is increasingly using technology to assist our engagement strategy. For example, MAPP partners with Locale, an occupier platform provider, which allows data and communications to be sent to and from occupiers, providing them with information about the building, including real-time data on health and safety, compliance, financials, service charge and other data.

It also provides occupiers with the ability to manage their occupation more efficiently, with security, delivery, visitor management and room booking functionality, amongst other things. This provides an excellent case study for clients of a scalable solution that is able to be ramped up as required on a modular basis in order to meet the changing needs of occupiers. Additionally, in our minds, the choice of partner is as critical as the software solution itself.

Change management is a core component of successful delivery, and the right technology provider will recognise that at the outset and be involved in the end-to-end process, as opposed to handing off a solution and standing back. It has also meant that to deliver on a flexible and scalable approach, we have recruited a Head of Building Technology, Ben Hughes, who acts as a guiding hand between our technology partners and the wider business, and who ensures that we have the widest possible impact.

This means aligned values have never been more important, as a wider range of smaller providers are selected to deliver in specific spaces rather than larger and typically more remote enterprise solutions. In this sense, equity allows all stakeholders, from occupiers and clients, through to suppliers and our own teams, to have access to technology that is appropriate to their own needs and procured with the end users’ requirements in mind.

Future-proof your building with Locale today