COMMENT: As my colleague Izzy wrote here a few weeks ago, data for data’s sake doesn’t necessarily lead to insight, writes Mark Hurst.
How many businesses fall into the trap of investing in producing good-quality data capable of delivering real value then end up doing nothing at all with it? “We have done the research and got the data” – tick. Others, however, will blindly follow what they believe are the findings without pausing to think about it and assimilate what has been produced.
Torture the data
Even if a well-meaning exercise in analysis is carried out, there may be a temptation to bend the data to suit predetermined conclusions – to paraphrase economist Ronald Coase: “Torture the data and it will confess to anything.”
Although we have all been told that real estate is not pure science, to gain a true insight there is no escaping that it all starts with the data. But when it comes to application there are clear benefits to overlaying an empirical approach. Yes, it is all data driven, but experience is needed to answer the “so what?”, to identify and extract the value.
At Ellandi our asset management team’s combined experience (280-plus years and counting) is coupled to research and analytics projects right from the planning stages through to output, interpreting and applying the learnings.
Professional diversity
These benefits will always be magnified further by wide-ranging applied experience. We are incredibly proud of the diversity within Ellandi, but this diversity is also found in our professional backgrounds. We have former agents, property managers, fund managers, developers, investment agents and (I will say it quietly) a banker. Everyone on the team will have a slightly different take on an asset or be able to identify something new, and some of this will present the right answer – or at least a bloody good idea.
It is also clear that to ask the right questions, we need to have a base level of expertise across all of the factors that can drive value when repurposing retail. Several of us have therefore taken on responsibility for a topic or practice area that affects how we invest in and manage our assets. We call them “sector specialists” and there are currently 10 of us covering areas from proptech to commercialisation, from sustainability to health and wellbeing. This is the way in which we harness and share our collective experience and, crucially, apply that understanding on a daily basis.
Ideas and insight
So a business has the expertise and it is being applied, but it still has to be recognised that (as much as we all sometimes believe to the contrary) none of us is the exclusive, single source of great ideas and insight.
Hubris – or simply our own bias – will wreck the chances of success sooner or later, and so we encourage the discussions and checks: we must use the areas where our collective experience and expertise overlap. Besides, working in silos is rarely enjoyable, nor the most productive way of tackling a complex problem – it’s good to talk and recognise that being challenged as individuals and as an open-culture business is essential in getting to those better outcomes.
Most of the real estate industry has accepted for a while now that town centres and the assets within them need to change; those who want to deliver change, however, need to change how they work too.
Mark Hurst is asset management director at Ellandi
