Latest / Built to Perform / Built to Perform with James Hallworth – Ep.1: Ben Cross on Creative Solutions in Real Estate

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Built to Perform with James Hallworth – Ep.1: Ben Cross on Creative Solutions in Real Estate · Built to Perform

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think there's never been a more interesting time or a more frightful time to start your own business.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome Ben.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for coming on to the Build to Perform podcast.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to have you here.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't mind, we'll just crack on and uh get straight into it, which is basically if you can just tell us a little bit about who you are and uh why you do what you do.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm Ben Crosswell.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um first of all, thank you for inviting me on the podcast.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I um I what do I call myself?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I I actually call myself a creative problem solver, um, albeit I now spend most of my time um as a as a proxy client, as a development manager, uh working with overseas funds and UK, UK domestic landlords, uh trying to find ways to reinvigorate their existing assets and find better solutions um for the ultimately produce an investable return.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: But also I um I spent half of my career uh on the consultancy side.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I like to say I'm a failed architect.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and um yeah, I spent about 10 years of my career uh earning learning my craft on that side of the business as well.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: And what what I find is that actually having that kind of rounded technical expertise as well as financial acumen is really something that um is I think quite powerful in uh for for the businesses of tomorrow.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um I we we like to call it expert generalism.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: So as well as doing a lot of a lot of other things in and around that, solving problems, saving money, making things happen, uh, I'd probably call myself an expert generalist.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So that yeah, that's really interesting.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so having a look back at your career and like you said, having a lot of architectural background and then transitioning into this client-side developer role.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um how did you find that transition to start with?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I mean anecdotally, I found the switch from being a consultant to a decision maker quite challenging from a personal perspective because I'd I'd spent I'd spent I'd spent my whole career to that date um I suppose actioning the decisions of um of clients and people who were ultimately making decisions for and for and on behalf of investors.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: And and so it wasn't it wasn't necessarily about um from from you know trying to de-learn all of that experience and technical expertise and uh you know the the the like creative problem solving of of being an architect.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: But when I moved into a client side role, I made a very, very conscious decision not to be the architect in the room that's managed to find himself in a in a in a in a client role.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um so actually looking back, I I I made a real conscious decision to almost like retrain and re-school in financial performance and reporting and and and doing all the things that actually a great a great development manager or a great asset manager might do.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I would say I yeah, I really, really wanted to focus on that and I almost saw my I saw my background as a as a as a hindrance rather than than a help.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: So it took a long time for me to actually get enough confidence and I suppose experience to really go back to go back to my roots and the the reason why I'm doing this uh ultimately, um, which is to to to to solve problems and find creative solutions to do that.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um now that I've spent more of my career in a client-side developer role, I actually think like balancing the two together has become far more powerful.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: But I would say initially that kind of knee-jerk reaction was me to um to become quite a different person.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know, even to the extent that I mean now I dress like a failed architect, but um I you know, I I could I almost like completely changed my wardrobe when I went when I became a client.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it was like navy suits, brown shoes, white shirt, um, just to kind of get kind of get rid of some of that stigma that might have come to it.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: But really, but really now I I I think it's um you know, I would I I definitely wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now if I hadn't originally started doing something quite different.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And was that was that always part of the master plan?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: The the plan for you in terms of your career was to go into end up in a development sort of world?
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Or was it always very architecturally based initially, and then that that's that's a switch up which just happened organically at a certain point in time?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was it was definitely organic.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I mean when I was growing up I was I was very curious and uh creative.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh my parents wanted me to do something that I'd enjoy uh and get paid well to do it, and God knows why they uh suggested architecture.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: Because I mean, you know, despite it being it it is a fantastic profession, uh, but I but I think it is uh it has become less valuable over time um as as real estate has become more of a commercial beast, and not not not to say that this experience is across the board, of course, but sometimes it just felt like we were sort of window dressing a commercial problem.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: And and and truthfully, I didn't even know this role existed when when I was growing up.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I now couldn't imagine myself doing anything differently.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: But it certainly wasn't a part of a grand plan.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I you know I I suspect at the point in time that I decided I wanted to move into a client side role, it was it was fundamentally driven by the the financial outcome.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh although I quickly realized that um you know whilst you might be paid better as a as a development manager or as a as a client, like certainly that comes with a lot more responsibility uh and a lot more effort that goes into it.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: So it was always it for me, it was a trade-off, but I've I've now found a I've I think now found a place where I've kind of got the best of both worlds.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so now you feel like you've got the confidence after that amount of time to now get back into the creativity detail, which you may have some stepped away from, shied away from a bit from his way of saying that.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, I'd say I'd say so so it interestingly I be because real estate or uh you know just getting anything, getting any project off the ground and delivered has become far more complicated through legislative change, through health and safety, through um specification escalation, and obviously a desire to make the world more sustainable.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: I have never lost touch with the technical expertise that's required to make good decisions.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: What I've done is I've spent a lot more time focusing on the finance, say the financial outcomes, and now blending together those two skill sets has become um a quite a powerful tool to be able to make complex decision making seem quite easy.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so, no, I would say I would say that but particularly over the last 10 years, I've I've I've actually I've always leveraged the skills that I've had on the on the technical side.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: Also, some of those softer skills, right, that that come with um understanding how design teams work, how uh creative people think, because create you know it's a sort of a left brain, right brain thing.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: How to challenge them?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you you do have to challenge people, but I think you have to challenge them in a way that they still feel they're that they are ultimately part of the outcome as well.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and so no, I I would say that now there is a a real focus on technical execution that I think anyone who's making decisions in real estate needs to have, but we can't forget about the bottom line, which is that all of these decisions like projects don't happen if they don't make money.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a balance.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's a balance between the two.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: And fundamentally, when you're in a world where construction costs have escalated, the cost of borrowing still is still pretty much at a 30-year high, and uh real real assets are diminishing diminishing in value on the basis that no one's doing anything.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: You've got you've got you've got an environment that's never existed in the last at least for the last three decades, which is that you've got to find a different way of coming up with a solution, otherwise the numbers just don't work, and we're you know we're back to square one.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: I saw I saw a a piece literally in the last 24 hours, which is uh you know, investment volumes at a two-year low.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think anyone that works in real estate, particularly on the investment or delivery side, is starting to feel that, and I was feeling it two years ago, about 18 months ago.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I can't I can't I can't I can't see a world where that gets any better through the influence of market dynamics such as interest rates coming in, they're not coming in fast enough.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I still think that you know the the the the the challenges that we have around construction aren't going to be solved through through waiting for things to become cheaper.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's just uh I think it's a fallacy.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: So it's all about doing things differently and finding a different way to solve the problem.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that brings us really nicely on to I think a phrase which I've I've seen you use which is really exciting and is is there, which is creating value through creativity.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think it'd be great just to get your your thoughts on on that and how you are approaching things in a more creative way in order to create value without actually having to spend lots of money to to do so and doing it in a in a considered is probably the right word, in a considered manner.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I think one of one of the greatest misconceptions about creativity is that people think that creativity is exclusively a creative act.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: So by which I mean um design, branding, marketing, you know, creative outputs that ultimately in some way feel designed, whereas we see creativity as a way of finding solutions to problems.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: To take that as an example, what we're what we're you we recognise that real estate is uh large, it's unwieldy, there's um there are lots of complex uh complex third parties, and there's a huge you know, that real estate employs so many people in so many disparate, some some often disparate industries, um, that to come up with a solution that can run through that whole value chain and come out with a successful outcome, I think I think is per is personally quite challenging.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: So what we have done is we we we try to find small marginal gains through each and every decision that we make to improve things slightly so that the overall outcome is better.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: And that is very much aligned with um like performance athletics and how you might remember from a couple of years ago you had the marginal gains theory, which uh you know which led um you know numerous Olympians and uh uh numerous British cyclists to success in the tour de France and on the Velodrome, etc.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: And we we sort of take that analogy, it's but it's not there's no one silver bullet that's going to define a successful outcome, but we've got to find different ways of running through these processes to ultimately deliver uh investable returns.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: When it that comes down to sort of the practicalities of actually delivering those sorts of business plans.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's uh there's part of it which is about speed and it's about execution and it's about making quick this quick informed decisions.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: The other part of it is actually then understanding how buildings perform and function, you know, what the occupier wants, uh, which I personally think most people overcomplicate, and uh ultimately what investors need, which is long-term sustainable income.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: And we solve that problem through really focusing on a the product that we're trying to deliver in terms of what it feels like, what what it um what what's the emotional investment that someone might have in that.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um but then on the delivery side, it's it's actually about understanding what needs to be replaced, how we're going to replace it, how much it costs, uh, whether there's an alternative solution, giving our teams the best information that we can possibly give them, and ultimately challenging them to come up with a with a better solution.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, if you want to break all of that down, actually, we we don't just look at existing buildings or existing assets as a um as a as a structure and as a facade that we can retain.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: We get we get really deep down into the weeds, and we're looking at we're looking at the systems that sit behind that, like how how old's the boiler, how old are the carrier systems, the terminal units, when were they last serviced, can they be can they be refurbished by the original supplier?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: What are the what's the best way to increase energy performance of the building without having to replace the facade?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: How do we get the long-term financial resilience out of the back end?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: So we're always asking these questions.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, we have a view, sometimes we're right, some sometimes we're wrong.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it's about being it's about being critical about every decision that you're making and ultimately making sure that the decisions that you're making at that point in time are the best informed ones.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I think something which you mentioned about the industry not loving change.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Why why do you think the industry really struggles with change?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: Change is interesting because uh I think as a species we don't like it because we're we sort of we like our comfort zone.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: Historically, to take a slightly more contrarian attitude, I think that there's never really been a huge need to change because processes have become more institutionalized and therefore more acceptable.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: But also that um particularly through the change that we're enacting, like we're trying to do we're trying to do projects faster, more cost effectively, and ultimately deliver better solutions.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: Now that ultimately takes more that takes more more intelligence, uh harder harder thinking, what probably it takes uh it probably takes us more time to be involved in those projects uh and got providing that leadership.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um but we're also notwithstanding all of that background, we're working on these projects that ultimately have a lower cost of entry.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: So everyone that's involved in them is being paid less to work harder and faster than the competition.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that's an environment that just hasn't existed before.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I think there's just been a there's just been an inertia to think, well, well, actually, we've this is how we did things before.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: It worked, it it worked last time and it broke, so we don't need we we don't need to fix it.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I guess we're just we're just now at a point where as as you as you've seen, it's there's just it's so much inertia in the market that people do need to find a different way of doing things, people need to be more collaborative, people need to ask more questions or come up with smarter solutions.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I think I think there's been a resistance to change just because we've we've never had to change.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: And certainly if you look at the last five years, there has been an inordinate amount of change in in society, in technology, in uh the cost of borrowing, in the financial environment, in geopolitical crisis.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I would I would say now is exactly the right time to be changing the way that we do things.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and avoiding that fear of change paralysis or fear of making a decision paralysis, yeah, which quite often happens when there's so much uncertainty about which obviously we have had for feels like longer than five years, but for the for the last period of time.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you're right, it's it's trying to find find ways to move through that and encourage people to to move and not sit still.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: What what are your thoughts in terms of we talked about getting decisions wrong?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think something which I'm quite passionate about is failing fast and and learning from it and then moving on.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: And is that something which you're you're also aligned with in terms of it's okay to fail, get something wrong as long as we learn from it quickly and we then move on to the solution in a different way?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh for us it's all about transparency.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: That when you're making a decision, you're not making those decisions in a vacuum, you're making those decisions collectively.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um obviously, with with uh with you know, our role and responsibility is to make the right decision not for and on behalf of um of our clients.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, but we're yeah, we're ultimately transparent about the the reasons why we're making those decisions and backing it up with evidence.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, this this idea that oh actually we've you know I I I like I like how you phrased it, you know, fail, fail fast um and adapt and learn from it.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: But I was toting it, I was trying to tot it up the other day about the number of decisions we might make in refurbishing an existing building.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: We're we're probably making a quarter of a million decisions through the lifetime of that project.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's like you're gonna get some of those wrong.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and I think you just have to accept that some of them will go wrong, but so long as they're not the the the big cataclysmic decision decisions that you get wrong, then I think that yeah, but that's absolutely fine.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: I think we shouldn't be we shouldn't be we shouldn't be scared of failure.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: What what what we should be doing is we should be you know we should be learning from those mistakes and trying to make things better and and just being observant and transparent about how we operate.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, as I say, like we don't as a business we we don't claim to be right all the time.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um sometimes you know sometimes we get you know we we we approach things through the advice that we're given by our consultants because ultimately things do change, you find something completely different, and it does have to then change your perspective around the solution that that becomes um that becomes part and parcel of a business plan.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think in commercial real estate industry we're not very good at being open about that to our peers and talking about it openly and saying, this is we get a nice shiny project at the end, um and we can see where it started, but sometimes there's the journey which you've been on, and we don't really talk about that, we don't knowledge share very well between ourselves, I don't think, in terms of something which we may have learned from that project, which actually is not a IP in intellectual property, it's just we're very very focused on here's a shiny in-log object, and actually, I think there could be a lot more value in terms of us sharing more about how we're how we're doing things, especially in for my side of things and like the prop technology side of things and how we're doing projects in that sense as well.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: But also from my project management days and being in building, spaying, etc., actually, like you said, we make a huge amount of decisions and we have to be agile, have to change as the project develops, but there's no real sharing across the industry about how we how we've solved those projects problems during during that project.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and and also because I think trying to reflect on some of the you know bigger decisions we've made on projects that um you know sometimes you you just have to accept that you want the path of least resistance on some of These things.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, just to take an an analogy of some of the things that we're doing at the moment.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: We're refurbishing a large a large building in the city of London at the moment and keeping a huge amount of the existing energy infrastructure within it to optimise cost but drive performance in terms of EPCs, neighbours, you know, future obsolescence.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: Let's just let's just call it that.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: And we've been really ambitious about the amount of stuff that we want to retain within that building to drive down cost, accelerate program, and ultimately create a product that people fall in love with.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: Less embodied carbon.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, and that's oh yeah, by the yeah, by the way, that I mean that's a brilliant outcome.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's I wouldn't say it's our primary driver.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um our primary driver is is yeah, is cost execution and return.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: The great outcome of that is also we're going to get low embodied carbon, which is brilliant.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: So, in terms of kind of setting those aspirations, we're now speaking with the supply chain and understanding whether there's kind of broad alignment between what we want to do and what they will accept, and just really simple things like um keeping containment, um, like metal containment that's on the floor.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we're like, well, that's a piece of metal that's going to be replaced with exactly the same piece of metal if we take it down.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, engaging with them uh uh on a on a one-on-one-on-one basis, you know, they're telling us it doesn't work from a logistics point of view, it's because it's like who takes the responsibility, where's the damage, who etc, etc., etc., lots of things.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: But you have to contextualize that on the on a building of that scale, 20,000 square foot floors, the floor plates, it's probably would probably save us£20,000 per floor if we manage to salvage that material and um basically put it back up.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: Now that's£100,000 over the scale of the building.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: That doesn't really shift the dial in terms of the amount of money that's being spent on the Capital Works programme.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: What does really shift the dial is us deciding not to replace the BMS but actually replace parts of it to upgrade it to a mean that it communicates more effectively with the new systems that we're putting in.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: The difference between replacing a BMS and keeping the existing one it's about a million pounds.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: So philosophically, you might take the argument that, oh well, we should, you know, we should be saving the metal that's on each floor because it's the best thing to do and blah blah blah.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but really it's only going to save us£100,000 if we did that.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_02: If we focused our effort and our energy on ensuring that actually these huge systems that we're that we're retaining within an existing building are put to good use for the next 15 years, then that's where we should be focusing our efforts.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I couldn't I couldn't have told you that that's where we would have ended up when we originally underwrote the project.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: But it's but if those are the types of things that we're investigating.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: And we're you know, for us, it's like, okay, great, we know what we're doing, we'll make a decision, we'll focus on this.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: We might be able to find a better solution, but but actually there's time better spent on finding other solutions, and that's the sort of thing that we would like to be able to communicate more broadly to the market around actually, this is this based on our experience and our hard work, these are the outcomes.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um be very happy to share those things.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, if if all anyone need do is ask.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're not very good at that though, are we?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, um, but that's the whole point of doing podcasts like this, though.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's it is showing that knowledge and that value to to a wider audience which should not ask that question, and they can they can hear it and challenge that thought process and then maybe reach out to you on on that.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's it's really powerful.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of on that, and you're talking about um the whole the end user and things like that.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: How how do you find the risk and the risk and reward side of things and also the challenges which say agents bring into into into this into that sort of fear is saying this is the expectation of what if you're gonna let this space, this is what they want to expect and how they should receive it, and then you're challenging it saying, actually, no, we're gonna be retaining this, um, and still make it a a space which lets up quickly and meets your financial modelling.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so one of the I mean, I'm not gonna throw agents under the bus.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: I think that'd be a very bad move.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: But um again, this is about alignment with expectations around the work that we intend to do to a building.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, where you know some might say we're cutting some corners, I would say we're spending money in the right places.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: But fundamentally, we are we are incredibly ambitious about what we want to create, but by no means would I say that we want to create best of the best product, we will create best in its class product.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: I think this idea that everything needs to be built to prime is a fallacy.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, if you if you speak to occupiers, they alongside lots of lots of other aspects about how they run their business, yeah.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: They they are they too, unless they're a you know global law firm, um going to be sensitive to pricing and how much their occupational costs are.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: So we're right sizing in and around the what what an occupier wants, which by the way is is is is is amenities um a sense of place, character, high performance, um a space where their employees want to come.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, those those facts are consistent across um across the occupier chain.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um just some can pay a lot more for their occupation than than others.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so when it comes to then demonstrating our um our aspirations with um with office agents, we're very clear about what we're wanting to achieve in terms of uh return and uh ERV, but we're also quite sensitive to the fact that actually we you just can't push a lot of these buildings to£120 a square foot.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's just not economically viable to do so.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: So we start all of the conversations that we have um with with with our teams around the expectations around delivery and who you know ultimately who who our target occupier is, and that then helps us to drive the right decisions around what we deliver in terms of physical product.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: The other part of it, which I think again, a lot of organizations uh don't think critically enough about at the beginning of a project, is who is who is the ultimate buyer of this as a say stabilized asset.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: So once you've done the works, who who is it going to be sold to?
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, if you can understand their parameters and what their KPIs are, then ultimately you can find a solution that fits that fits within their box.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: A really good example of that from the work that we're doing is um a lot of um you know institutional investors will want a uh warranty for all of the new um services that are integrated into um in into a building.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: And we sort of question well, why do they want a warranty?
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: They they want a warranty because they want to ensure that if they're buying a stabilised asset, that ultimately they're not going to have to spend any more additional capex on it over the whole period.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: That doesn't immediately mean we need a 15-year warranty.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: She means we need to find a way of ensuring that through the works that we're doing, we're providing them with enough long-term financial resilience or insurance to to ensure that anything does go wrong, that um that you know that someone else will be picking up a tap, as it were.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: Now, of course, that could be a warranty for a new part, but it could also be us taking that part back to the original supplier, asking them to refurbish it and then give us a new warranty for it.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's one solution.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it could be an insurance policy, it could be latent defects insurance.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: As you would say, for like that what we're trying to get to, we're trying to get from A to B.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: But B isn't necessarily the thing that people have always thought it is.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, ultimately, sure.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: That the easiest the easiest way to give uh uh an investor that long-term assurance is to do what we've always done.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's just we're we're now in a world where actually it's no longer financially viable for us to be able to give that, give give them what they've had before.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: That doesn't mean we shouldn't give them it, it means we should find a different way of solving the problem.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, again, you're having to deal with lots of, you know, you're but in some ways you're having to right-size all of these things around um a little bit of an unknown because you actually don't know who your your your ultimate uh purchaser is going to be.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um but we we we're trying to solve we're trying to solve the problem rather than actually just give a piece of paper.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's really interesting um hearing what you're just saying there.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: Your financial approach is financial sustainability, which is which is ultimately gives you the product and approach which you're going for with the with a knock-on effect of ESG.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Sustainable environmental sustainability.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not actually the forefront, the the primary driver, um, but it's it's being achieved in a in a in a slightly different way, which is a really interesting approach.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I like to joke that actually we're in the commodities business rather than the real estate business, because what we realize through a huge amount of the work that we're doing on the system side, we're ripping out materials and replacing them with exactly the same materials, be it galvanized ductwork, copper pipe work.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: And those carrier systems that are fundamentally taking energy from one part of the building to another are ultimately just going to be replaced with exactly the same thing.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: Now, obviously, they're of an age, um, they need to be uh they need to be checked and validated to ensure that they're still within their serviceable life.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um but the the most uh cost-effective thing you can do with uh those elements is is not touch them in the first place.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so we see we see them as a as both a valuable resource from an economic perspective, but you're absolutely right, they then obviously have an a they have a value from a from a sustainability perspective as well.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: Again, it's just it's just it's not questioning conventional wisdom, it's making sure that we're focusing our efforts on those perhaps more overlooked parts of developments uh and and strategies that people have never really questioned so much before.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's our I think it's our duty to question those things because we're we're we're ultimately making decisions for and half for and on behalf of our clients.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, we're we're we feel a sense of responsibility to make sure that we're we're not wasting money unnecessarily.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that I felt like that journey sort of started with um retaining raised access floors and you know it's taking it that step step further, and it's still it still bugs me the amount of times you walk through a London street and you see um those raised access floors being chucked out of windows into a skip and furniture.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: I only yesterday we walked past brand essentially brand new two-year-old Herman Miller chairs being loaded up into lorry, and it's like it's it's such a waste, isn't it?
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it so I don't think I can go through this podcast without touching on this, which is obviously LinkedIn.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um as I may have admitted to you, obviously a big fan of um just generally your whole personal branding strategy um and especially the visual element to that as well.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I just wanted to understand kind of for you why and when did that journey start in terms of building the personal brand this I I never started posting on LinkedIn to create a personal brand.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: I used it as a as a device to share some of my experiences.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh when I uh I mean I was for for a period of time, I was also um as well as doing the my my day job on the development side, I was also doing a lot of the the brand positioning for some of the for some of the uh businesses that I'd worked for historically.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and so actually it was only when once we kind of grew to a certain size and to a certain scale uh that I then had the opportunity to start talking about some of the day-to-day uh realities of running projects.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um I yeah, it was uh I whether they were interesting or not, I don't know, that's up to you to decide.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: But uh I just wanted to do it to to to share, yeah, really, and I think also to create a a greater sense of exposure and um I suppose a bit more kind of ephemerality to to to to the work that goes on behind the scenes because it is tough, it is tough and it's long hours, and I mean uh as you've as you've said before, people tend to focus on the shiny images at the end of a project and don't talk tend to talk about the processes that you've got there.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um whereas for me actually I I I just enjoy enjoy the content and enjoy the the creative process of projects.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_02: There's so there's so many talented people and so much great work that it only feels right to uh to to put a little bit of it out there.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_02: But if I yeah, if I if I spent too much time on there, I'd actually never get my day job done either.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's fantastic, and I think um you you add value by by sharing and showing really valuable information, but you do it in a really aesthetically pleasing way as well.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I do really appreciate that, and that's probably a bit of the architect in you coming out there, isn't it?
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's a it's both polish and process at the same time.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, not always waiting for the right result, but also yeah, trying to make it trying to make it uh uh look and feel good as well.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, do let's do spend a bit supporting that.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um okay, so moving on, um as we close out, I think it'd be great just to understand big picture-wise in the industry, um why you think change is required and why it's so important.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean from a from a practical side, I think we uh coming to the realization that the way that we've done things historically uh isn't isn't always going to work, and that change is important because it ultimately allows progress to happen.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: For at least for the last 18 months, two two years, there's just been so much inertia.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think change should be seen as a positive thing rather than something that's uh risky and um that we should be adverse to.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um also I think change can ultimately through the I mean particularly through the work that we're doing, you have the way in which we're changing mentality ultimately reduces risk and speeds up programs and ultimately reduces capital outlay.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's a sort of a win-win-win, and you don't get a lot of those.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: But I think there is a lot of change in the industry that people um ought to take notice of.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I mean, certainly as a business, we're using some artificial intelligence to um to ensure that we're obtaining the right levels of information for for for projects so that we can articulate those in a way that people can understand.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's never it is never going to replace our uh our expertise as an organization.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um this is artificial intelligence.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's it it's never going to be r replace the team that we have or the the amazing individuals that we have in the business, but I think you ignore it at your peril as well, um, because it is such a such a powerful tool, and so yeah, I I I mean I've as as we've spoken about before, I think there's there's never been a more interesting time to try try something new.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I I certainly think there's never been a more interesting time or a more frightening time to start your own business.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but hopefully we'll I'll look back on that and you know ultimately come to the conclusion that it was the right decision to make.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um but these things don't you know don't need to be considered in a vacuum.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_02: I think as long as you're making as long as you you're using them for what they are and you're leveraging the good bits out of them, I think they are up they're ultimately all tools that we can use.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_02: And certainly I would probably spend um you know, per from my own personal experience, um, I would probably spend another hour, two hours a day uh crafting crafting emails and um coming up with research if if we didn't use something like AI.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I and by the way, I work I work a lot anyway, so I'd just be able I'd just be having less sleep.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I think that's exactly how as a company we're we're really pushing it out is using it as a co-pilot to allow the teams to go out and do the creative the stuff which they got into the industry to do and not sit at a laptop or a PC on Excel or doing the research stuff.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's getting rid of the grant work and allowing them to do the creative, exciting stuff which and meeting people and getting out and about and visiting the buildings which we're we're involved in.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I completely agree.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's where the power of that lies for me as well.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: And and certainly the something that we haven't touched on is the power of understanding the drivers that other people have within the industry.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, none of this work gets done without people.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_02: So whilst we are in a business of real assets, uh you know, physical, physical product, um ultimately we're in the people business as well.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_02: And it's always fascinating to see how others see the work that we do through through their lens and ultimately trying to find the solution that's going to work for them.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_02: For instance, you know, um on construction work and delivery and how supply chains work, I've I find that incredibly fascinating.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just that very few people step over to that side and turn the telescope around and try to look look at a project through their eyes.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, people make a lot of assumptions around how how others see projects, and I think we just we also, as well as you know, doing things slightly different, we also need to understand where other people are coming from as well.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that brings us really nicely on to the question which I'd like to end on, which is do you think that uh commercial real estate requires uh evolution or revolution?
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_02: So going back to my point that we that we spoke about earlier, I I feel that real estate needs to evolve.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_02: And the way that it will evolve is to revolutionize small parts of it to get a outperformance in terms of outcome.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_02: It would be great if there was a silver bullet, but there there just there just isn't, or at least if you know I I haven't I haven't come across it.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_02: So it's about changing the way in which you're approaching those problems across the whole the whole life cycle of a project to ultimately come to a result that is effectively the next evolution.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: The work that we do shouldn't be that innovative um in terms of how we're trying to drive down cost and save money replacing building systems that are perfectly um perfectly usable and perform as as as they need to and are still within their serviceable life.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it's amazing how many people I do talk to and they say, Oh, actually, I've never heard anyone talk about that before.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so I think a lot some of it is kind of missed opportunities, but I would definitely say um that it's um you know we've got to revolutionize parts of the industry rather than revolutionise the whole thing.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: So lots of mini revolutions to get your evolution, yes, yeah.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant, yeah.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well um that's brilliant.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so thank you so much for joining us today.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um some great insight and some I think some real value to everyone who's gonna be listening to this.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you very much for that.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's really exciting to see what you're doing with Moore uh and and uh Basil uh on that.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's such a exciting new venture, and look forward to seeing how that unfolds and where you take things.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you again for joining us.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.