Real Asset Insight #6 June 2020

Insight & Strategy – Proptech
Data collection will be crucial to
post-pandemic office environment
Workers and property owners will want more information
about the spaces they work in – and proptech can help
Source: AdobeStock/BillionPhotos.com
‘People want
reliable
information in
real time on
density and air
quality in their
office building.’
Tom Wallace,
Re-Leased
The office sector can learn from the
experience of retailers as it adapts to
changes brought about by the pandemic,
experts told Real Asset Insight at June’s
proptech briefing.
‘Retail has worked hard at offering change and
creating experiences in order to bring people
back to the shops,’ says Michelle Buxton,
founder & managing director of Toolbox Group.
‘Now the office sector has a similar challenge
because it needs to give people a good reason
to go back to the workplace and feel safe.’
The global remote working experiment during
the coronavirus epidemic has been more
successful than anyone expected, which will
lead to profound changes in the office sector
and even a rethinking of that constitutes an
office – or indeed work itself.
LESS BUT BETTER SPACE
There is an analogy with the retail sector, which
had to reinvent itself to deal with the challenge
of online shopping. The key is to offer less but
better space to customers or workers.
‘Fewer people will need an office, so we need
to make more people want an office,’ explains
Antony Slumbers, CEO of PropAI. ‘If space is the
hardware, you need to add software, which is
services. Their range and quality will be crucial.
If you create the best user experience of your
space you’ll maximise revenue.’
This is where proptech can help, as it can collect
and analyse data and provide solutions.
‘We’re going into an environment where
offices are not needed,’ says Tom Wallace,
founder & CEO of Re-Leased. ‘In order to feel
safe, people want reliable information in real
time on their phones on density and air quality
in their office building.’
In New Zealand, where fear of the virus is now
extremely low, ‘people want to go back to the
office, but they have also learnt the value of
working from home, so we expect that will
continue at least one day a week in future’,
adds Wallace.
According to a snap poll by Real Asset Media
among market experts at the online briefing,
most respondents believe that only half of their
team will be working in the office full time by the
end of the year. A quarter think the percentage
of home workers could be as high as 80%.
The challenge to bring people back will continue
for the office as well as for the retail sector.
‘In the UK when shops opened again there
were queues the first day but now they are
empty again,’ says Buxton. ‘Across Europe,
however, they are back to 80% of footfall
compared to before the crisis, so it’s not all
doom and gloom. But there’s a long way to
go to get back to normal.’
60 Real Asset Insight | Issue 2 July 2020