Remit Newsletter 14 - Autumn 2006
There's a great experiment reported by Dr Barry Schwartz in his book "The Paradox of Choice". Buyers of jam in a supermarket are confronted with dozens of new varieties and, the majority walk away without buying. Changing the selection to just six varieties reassured the shoppers and sales increased.
Our thanks to Magnus Svantegård of Datscha who has added The Long Tail to our bookshelf. This book, by Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief of Wired magazine, contradicts Schwartz. Anderson suggests that if you increase choice buyers will buy everything you offer - but you have to sell to buyers who have enough information to judge what they will like.
Anderson's book gives examples of music sites where 98% of the catalogue is downloaded at least once every quarter - a catalogue of 1.6 million tracks! He shows how Google and eBay make money from tapping into the millions of individual sales, be they adverts targeted at search terms or unwanted birthday presents. This is the Long Tail of the book's title. Read
But how is this relevant to property? Well, we have our own Long Tails. Relatively few trophy buildings are sold but prime investment property sets the benchmark by which we value our property. Huge volumes of sales are transacted on tertiary property and this is the long tail where brokers all over the UK make their living - auctions are at the end of this tail.
As more information is made available on property at lower costs, so it becomes possible to identify many more ways to tap into this market or lower transaction costs or reduce risk. Maybe it is time to grab the property market by the tail.
Magnus Svantegård has an excellent Blog devoted to clever things in real estate
Read: - http://blog.magnussvantegard.com
Events
Henry Stewart conference - 11 September -
Melita will be speaking at the upcoming Henry Stewart conference on 11th September on the topic of measuring the performance of your 3rd party suppliers. If you mention our name when booking, you will qualify for a 15% discount.
Details: www.henrystewart.com/conferences/september2006/C061325/
Realcomm, Dallas, 26th-27th June - Mark Jones and Andrew Waller attended Realcomm to keep abreast of new ideas in the US. The big news is that the US has woken up to the environment and almost every speaker mentioned energy efficiency. More than that, the Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are using energy efficiency to seize time with the Executive Board. Some CIOs are taking an operational role in projects rather than mere support and many believe that the CIOs will take over the area of building technology from their property counterparts. Property professionals beware - the IT specialists have their eyes on your place at the table.
Andrew's review of the conference is due for publication in the Estates Gazette shortly and it will of course be posted on our site.
PCS-Expo, Business Design Centre, Islington, 17th-18th October - The free seminars and key note sessions bring a huge range of topics to this event - Future workplaces, marketing your firm, enabling change in property management, and psychometric testing for recruitment are all covered. Mark Jones and Andrew Carter will be presenting a session about measuring the performance of your real estate, building on case studies from a number of our clients this year, and we are proud to have helped set up the key-note sessions.
Full details are available at www.pcs-expo.co.uk where you can register online.
Look out for our special PCS-Expo newsletter at the beginning of October.
Expo Real 2006 in Munich, Germany 23-25 October
With same number of visitors as MIPIM, the EXPO REAL has grown into the meeting place for property developers, banks and investors for central Europe, including Germany.
Hans Hiensch and Hans Gerritsen will be visiting the EXPO REAL in Munich. Full details are available at: www.exporeal.net
CoreNet Summit, Lisbon, 17-19 September - Andrew Waller will be presenting a session with Andy Thornton of BBC Workplace at the CoreNet summit in Lisbon. The presentation will focus on the work at the BBC to define the metrics they use to measure the performance of property against corporate objectives. This will be a summary of our six month project at the BBC earlier this year. Read more - www.corenetglobal.org/lisbon
Property Forum - Melita Thomas will be facilitating a workshop at the Property Forum in September on the topic of outsourcing looking at how to get the most out of your third party suppliers.
Outsourcing Seminar with Lawrence Graham - Melita Thomas and Andrew Carter will be presenting at a Lawrence Graham seminar in late October. We will be looking at structuring outsourcing contracts to make sure that both parties achieve a "win-win". Let us know if you are interested in attending and we will be sure to send you full details and an invitation. Contact us
Articles and Papers
Mark Jones wrote an article for the Property Systems Review about Asset Management systems in the public sector which was published in their last issue. The article, "Is your Asset Management System working for you?", has now been reprinted in the quarterly journal of ACES, The Terrier.
Read the article at www.remitconsulting.com/articles/assetmanagement.html
Remit News
We are delighted to be working with a wide variety of clients in both the public and private sectors. Current engagements include helping to formulate a business plan for a new investment fund, preparing a property team for an SAP implementation, a systems and process review for an investment team and providing research on the state of the off shore market for real estate services.
Rufus "Pupdate"
Rufus, the guide dog puppy which we sponsor (Re-Mutt?), has a new photo on our website. Rufus continues to go to puppy class once a fortnight to learn obedience and obstacle avoidance. According to his trainers his recall is great and he is really responsive to commands. He has taken his first train trip. Read
And finally
For those of you who missed the Le Mans 24 hour race this year - the unstoppable (and almost silent) diesel Audis, the frustratingly unreliable Aston Martins, the ever popular local Pescarolos - here is a short film clip (850k) from the grandstands at midnight.
See the video: www.remitconsulting.com/timeout.html
Contact us
As always, please get in touch on any of the subjects above - we would love to hear from you. Contact us
