On 17 October, ASK4 hosted Closing The Gap, the Proptech in BTR roundtable, in partnership with Centrick at their headquarters in Birmingham. This time, proptech providers were invited into the room to give their right of reply, following the topics discussed at the first roundtable event in March, and the findings published in The Ant and The Elephant whitepaper.
The Ant and The Elephant
The key idea behind Closing The Gap was to explore the fundamental differences between the way in which proptech (the ant) and BTR organisations (the elephant) operate, and the meaningful steps that need to be taken to help make proptech adoption easier, more efficient, and more profitable for everyone involved.
Proptech’s Right of Reply
The roundtable was joined by Dan Foryszewski and Rob Simmonds of MRI Solutions, Ben East of Spike Global, and Jon Gittins of Watergate, who all addressed specific themes that emerged from Ant and The Elephant whitepaper. Questions put to these proptech representatives centred around integration, cost and ROI, and stakeholder management, with the goal of understanding the challenges that proptech providers face, where friction points occur and where the opportunities for meaningful actions to reconcile these different approaches are.
Closing The Gap
In the second part of the roundtable, the focus was on reflecting on the discussions earlier in the session and putting together some ideas for tangible ways that the two sectors could become more aligned and areas in which communication could be improved to improve deployments of technology. Ideas around ROI evidencing, industry standard procurement practices, databases on suppliers and solution compatibility, better understanding of BTR development cycles, and dedicated technology leads within BTR organisations were all raised.
Next steps
ASK4 is continuing to work closely with relevant organisations to help facilitate meaningful actions that will bring about real change in the ways the sectors interact. So watch this space for further updates!
As ever, our sincere thanks to all those who gave time to take part. We will do our upmost to make sure it was time well spent.
If you would like to input or register your interest in attending any future Proptech in BTR events, please email jess.glover@ask4.com.
