When I joined the property technology sector just over a year ago, I did so as an outsider, that perspective has proved invaluable. Without pre-conceptions shaping my perspective, I observed the industry through a different lens, asking questions that perhaps others were no longer asking. For that reason, I have deliberately waited before sharing my reflections as CEO of Inform Services.
What stood out most was not the complexity of estate management. Complexity is inevitable in a sector responsible for managing diverse property portfolios. What surprised me was something else entirely. Despite the significant advances the sector has made, many of the processes supporting estate management remain fragmented.
That observation shouldn't be interpreted as a criticism of the software available today. Quite the opposite. Across the market there are excellent products available, each designed to solve specific challenges, and many do so exceptionally well.
The question, however, is no longer whether individual products are capable. It is whether they collectively reflect the way organisations actually work, supporting their workflow.
That distinction has shaped much of our thinking over the past year. Rather than asking where another feature could be added or another product introduced, we have spent our time trying to understand where organisations still experience friction, not within individual tasks, but between them.
Another trend that has become increasingly evident is the number of organisations choosing to develop software internally to bridge those gaps. In many cases, that decision has been made for entirely understandable reasons, whether to gain greater flexibility, retain control or meet operational requirements that existing products were never designed to address. However, software development is evolving at an extraordinary pace. AI, cloud technology and modern development practices are fundamentally changing what organisations should expect from enterprise software.
That raises an important strategic question. As technology continues to evolve, where should organisations focus their expertise? Increasingly, I believe the greatest value lies not in maintaining specialist software internally, but in partnering with organisations whose sole focus is continual product development and innovation.
The direction of travel feels increasingly clear. Organisations are being asked to manage more information, provide greater transparency and respond more quickly than ever before. In that environment, software strategy becomes less about building everything yourself and more about ensuring the right technologies work together to support the organisation deliver the right outcomes in the most effective way to its customers.
One of the assumptions I arrived with was that many of the sector's inefficiencies would stem from a lack of capable technology. I quickly realised the opposite was true.
Estate management has never been better supported. Organisations have access to richer information, increasingly sophisticated software and more specialist expertise than at any point in the industry's history. The market has invested heavily in improving individual activities, and that investment has undoubtedly raised standards across the profession.
What is changing now, however, is the way organisations are beginning to think about the wider estate management journey.
Estate management rarely begins with day-to-day portfolio management. It begins much earlier, from the first proposal and initial client engagement through to operational delivery and long-term client management. Each stage has naturally evolved to solve its own operational challenge, and in many organisations, each is supported by different systems, different teams and different processes.
There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Specialisation has driven much of the innovation we see across the sector today. However, it has also meant that continuity between those activities has often received less attention than the activities themselves.
For me, that represents the next significant opportunity.
The future of estate management will not be defined by individual processes. It will be defined by how effectively those processes connect.
If we look closely at where organisations experience operational inefficiency, it rarely stems from the individual tasks themselves, but from the movement between them.
From proposal and onboarding through to operational delivery, information gathered at one stage should naturally inform the next. Yet too often it is transferred manually, recreated unnecessarily or separated by organisational and technical boundaries that have gradually become accepted as part of the process.
Manual handovers, reconciling information across systems and rebuilding context have become routine. Rather than questioning why those activities still exist, we often accept them as an inevitable consequence of managing complex estates.
I am not convinced they should be.
For many years, software has largely been evaluated by the functionality it provides. Can it perform a specific task? Does it solve a particular operational problem? Those questions remain important, but I believe organisations are beginning to ask broader ones.
How easily does information move through the business? How much manual effort is still required between processes?
As workloads increase and expectations continue to grow, improving individual activities will only take organisations so far. The greater opportunity lies in improving how work moves through the organisation.
Over the past year, one of the biggest shifts in our thinking has been to view estate management as a complete lifecycle rather than a series of disconnected activities. I believe that fundamentally changes the way technology should be developed.
Every stage influences the next. Decisions made during the earliest conversations with a client continue to shape operational delivery long after a portfolio has been established. Reporting informs future strategy, while the knowledge gained throughout a client relationship should strengthen every subsequent interaction.
Those connections already exist. The question is whether technology is designed to support them.
This is why I believe workflow is becoming just as important as functionality. The most valuable technology of the future will not simply enable organisations to complete tasks more quickly. It will reduce unnecessary administration, preserve context throughout the process and allow people to focus their expertise where it creates the greatest value.
This thinking has also influenced the way we see the future of property technology.
For many years, software has understandably evolved as specialist solutions addressing specialist problems. That has brought enormous value to the industry and will undoubtedly continue.
However, I believe the next phase of innovation will be less about creating additional standalone products and more about improving how existing capabilities work together.
Working across software, data and professional services provides a perspective that extends beyond any single product. It allows us to see where organisations repeatedly experience friction, where information loses continuity and where opportunities are missed because different parts of the process operate independently.
Our ambition is not simply to develop individual products in isolation. It is to create an ecosystem where each solution supports a different stage of the estate management lifecycle, enabling information to move more effectively, reducing unnecessary administration and creating greater continuity across the wider journey.
The estate management sector has made significant progress over the past decade. Products will continue to evolve, become more capable and respond to changing market needs. However, I believe the next significant opportunity lies elsewhere. It lies in how those products work together.
Connected workflows will become increasingly important. Integration, both technical and operational, will define success by allowing organisations to move seamlessly from one stage of the estate management journey to the next.
Over the last year, that belief has become central to our thinking at Inform Services. Rather than viewing products as individual destinations, we increasingly see them as connected parts of a wider ecosystem.
This isn't about creating technology for technology's sake. It's about creating greater continuity across the estate management journey, reducing unnecessary friction and enabling information, people and processes to work together more effectively.
I believe that is where the industry is heading, and it is certainly the direction we are taking. As we continue to evolve our products and services, our ambition remains clear: to create a more connected estate management experience that supports organisations from initial engagement through to long-term portfolio management, helping them work more efficiently while remaining focused on where they create the greatest value.
Because ultimately, I don't believe the future of estate management will be defined by individual technologies. It will be defined by how effectively those technologies, teams and workflows connect across the entire lifecycle.
