Real Asset Insight #6 June 2020

Insight & Strategy – Comment
These times are an
opportunity to be the
‘Armani of internet’
Now more than ever it is a time to rethink business models,
and adopting a best-in-class approach can bring
success, says Thorsten Herbert
As promised I’m back! When I wrote
‘We need more heroes’ back in
December 2019 I couldn’t know how
true it would turn out to be, as nobody
knew about the economic downturn and
global health crises that would caused by
the coronavirus pandemic.
This is a time for heroes, a time for
industry professionals to demonstrate
leadership and guide their companies
through the crisis, trying to understand
the complexity of the situation on a macro
level and to find out what it could mean for
the near and middle term.
There is an awareness that life after
coronavirus will not be the same and we
have tried to assess the varying influences
on the real estate business in our Real
Asset Live online conferences week by
week as well as in our Special Report (free
to download).
START OF SOMETHING NEW
A crisis can be seen as a reset or even as
the opportunity to start something new – a
start-up – which reminds me of my time in
Italy where I lived from 1998 to 2008. After
a year’s employment in a corporate group,
my good friend Riccardo and I decided to
dive into the booming dotcom business.
We registered all the important downtown
street names in Milan as domains and
built up city portals for the local shops
to be present and easy to find – we
were the first to have big, zoomable
maps, long before Google Maps was
born, and we quickly got many retail and
F&B owners on board. We were smart
enough to reconnect with real life and
produced printed maps for tourists and
also a MilanoOnline Member Card to get
discounts in affiliated shops.
It took days and nights of constant hard
work and many times we went in the
wrong direction when Riccardo once said:
‘We need to be the Armani of internet!’
This was our belief and I still love this
phrase today as there is so much in it.
By applying a ‘best in class’ attitude you
will find your competitive advantage and
doing it ‘the Italian way’ means that it will
also look good (You have read our Special
on Italy already?).
If we apply this to the current situation we
could make good use of new ‘Armanis of
real estate’. Reflect, stick your head above
the parapet, think and rethink, do and
redo, repeat again and again. Business
models need to be rethought and new
ideas need to be brought on board –
innovation is more important than ever
and it needs to be sustainable – as we
heard in our recent Innovation, Data &
PropTech event from Antony Slumbers:
‘What you always wanted to do and
haven’t done the last 10 years needs to be
done now!’
Maybe now is the opportunity to shape
your business for the future – be the
Armani of real estate – elegant, designed
for today, confident and ultra-professional.
We are trying to do this in our business
to support the industry: all our events
are virtual and when we can go back to
physical events they will be hybrid, with
live streaming to reach a global audience.
We relaunched the Real Asset Insight
website (www.realassetinsight.com),
introduced new online event & interview
formats (ask me for info) and launched
a global online Real Estate Trade Fair
& Conferences called REALX.global.
And there will be another great service
available soon focused on sharing
knowledge.
Again, I’ll be back talking about
something ‘different’. Until then, stay
healthy and curious! l
‘Business models need to be rethought and new ideas
need to be brought on board – innovation is more
important than ever and it needs to be sustainable.’
Thorsten Herbert, Real Asset Media
66 Real Asset Insight | Issue 2 July 2020