Hungry for more data

At the meeting, Sebastian Podrzycki, the country sales manager for Poland of Conject, joked that the main reason why real estate professionals had come together in Warsaw’s Polonia Palace Hotel was to eat breakfast. But this didn’t stop both him and Tim Dolan, the senior account manager for Europe of Argus Software, from using the opportunity to demonstrate the computer programs offered by their respective companies. Software was presented by Sebastian Podrzycki to optimise cost management, project management and defect management. He demonstrated how all costs could be held in one place and matched with the progress made in a project’s construction work. But arguably the software that generated the greatest buzz among the participants was a defect management program. Conject has only been offering this software solution for a few weeks now, as it was just recently (January 29th) that the company bought out the original developer of the software system, French IT company Wapp6. If some defect in a building is discovered (say, a wall has not been properly painted), a manager needs only bring up the plan of the building on a tablet computer to record it and associate the defect with the room. A short description can be added and the tablet can even be used to take a picture of any shoddy workmanship. When the data is uploaded to the central database, the system will tell the user which sub-contractor is responsible for correcting the defect. The manager can then bring up a list of all the building’s defects together with comprehensive data about what has been done to correct them. One of the features of the systems on show was that they all kept full histories and so any changes made at any stage of a project can be viewed. It should come as no surprise that Conject has a strategic partnership with Argus. Tim Dolton, in the presentation that immediately followed, explained how Argus’ software could display all the investment estimates of a given project. It collates all the relevant financial information, including equity and debt levels as well as projected returns over time and the estimates upon which these projections are based. Tim Dolton claimed that the system would offer so much more than a simple Excel document. Whenever an underlying estimate has to be changed for a project, the relevant equations can be altered for all the project data held within the system. With the press of a button a stress test can be applied to a model of the asset, showing how profitable a project would be under varying marketing conditions. Scrambled eggs and bacon were then offered to help the participants digest all the information. The issues raised in the after-breakfast discussion included the need for further standardisation within the sector. At the moment worldwide standards for making measurements are being drawn up, which some claim are certain to be adopted. The role of culture was also discussed and to what extent such differences impede the adoption of new standards. One point that was made very clear over the breakfast was that the sector still has a huge appetite for complete and accurate information.