Ray Jones, Group Managing Director at property services company Liberty Group, shares his vision for the future of property services and the potential for the sector to deliver more through greater openness and transparency.
Across the property services industry there are exciting opportunities to rethink traditional ways of working and bring fresh ideas to the sector.
Our first area of focus needs to be on driving up efficiency. This has always been an area of focus for contractors but will continue to be key going forward.
However, I see efficiency as not about driving down cost, it is about doing things differently — working in partnership to make sure investment and resources are targeted where they are needed the most. Through maximising the value of each visit to every home we can deliver the efficiencies that clients want to see and, at the same time, reduce disruption for the customer.
Maximising the value of every visit
At Liberty we are developing new technology, which is enabling Liberty engineers to perform much broader asset management checks while they are in customers’ homes. This will dramatically reduce the number of visits needed to monitor and track stock condition and provide live data to enable clients to make better, more targeted and faster investment decisions, while at the same time significantly reducing the impact on their tenants and improving customer experience.
This is a win-win situation, with lower costs, better stock management and happier customers.
Rethinking procurement
In order for clients to really capitalise on efficiency and innovation, procurement processes for contracts including repairs and maintenance, gas servicing and M&E, will need to catch up with the rapidly changing environment the property services sector is facing.
More often than not, traditional contracting methods, which are sometimes rolled over from previous procurement events, don’t provide the flexibility to meet changing client requirements and customer focused outcomes.
There is an opportunity to reverse this thinking and move towards long-term contracts which cover a wider scope of works than the traditional model, minimising touch points for the client and their tenants by having a single contractor providing more services.
This also means incentivising first-time fixes which creates benefits for all, from the customer that experiences fewer visits and less disruption, to the client who gets better data and more services from each visit and the contractor that reduces the cost per job.
I believe that more outcome focused contracts, closely aligned to client and customer requirements as opposed to the traditional transactional schedule of rates, will facilitate more investment and collaboration within the sector.
The role of technology
To get this right in the future, increasing digitisation will be key providing more choice for client and customer contact, and significantly enhance resource management. This means developing digital and self-service channels for customers, providing systems that allow clients to access live management information as well as self-monitoring assets that can be supported remotely.
Open and transparent relationships
Transparency and trust can also be improved through the wider adoption of open book accounting, which gives clients full visibility of contractor’s commercial information and supports building trust within partnerships.
As a sector, we need to stop shying away from our need to make a return, there is real value in the services that are outsourced and these should be recognised but in a sustainable way for clients, customers and contractors. Profit allows us to invest in staff and systems that will help us evolve to meet the needs of the ever-changing future. Liberty is proud to reinvest its profits into projects that benefit communities, and we believe that by being open with our clients about the profit that we make and where it goes, we will develop stronger, more trusted relationships that respect the needs of all parties and the value that they bring.
I see this approach as an opportunity to build stronger partnerships that are focused first and foremost on delivering the best possible customer outcomes.
Developing trust and confidence
At Liberty we’re not claiming to have all the answers. Not yet, anyway. But we fully recognise that big changes are on way for our industry, and we need to be ready and agile in our responses.
As property service contractors, we must remember that we are in a unique position. In some cases, we are the only landlord representative that customers see all year.
This means that we need to be trusted by our clients to represent them and their brand, and that the customer also needs to have confidence in us to represent their voice and advocate for them with their landlord.
We have recently set up Strategic Partnership Boards, on new contracts and through these we bring together the Liberty team with client representatives to maintain close relationships throughout the life of the contract and encouraging a systems thinking approach to service review and continuous improvement.
In the future, I see this as an opportunity to give customers a stronger voice. We can bring customers onto the Boards, really listen and learn, putting their voice and views at the heart of services.
Building on strong foundations
In a time of change we must never lose sight of the basics. They are the foundations that our sector is built on. This means delivering the highest levels of efficiency, heath and safety and customer care, and empowering our employees to do their jobs to the best of their ability — from providing the right equipment, to the quality of their working conditions and wellbeing.
This is a really exciting time for property services to be dynamic, responsive and to transform traditional ways of thinking, embrace technology, and put all our efforts into developing strong partnerships with our clients that deliver long-term value and benefits for their customers.
Group Managing Director Ray Jones pictured (centre) with fellow Liberty Group colleagues
