The battle for who can deliver the best pitch to the built environment about why their tech solution will revolutionise the sector is on.
CBRE, Legal & General Investment Management Real Assets and KPMG have been locked in boardrooms with the three finalists in EG Tech Academy, mentoring them on how to take their businesses forward and how to win over an EG TechTalk Radio audience during a live online pitch. The winner will be announced at EG’s Tech Awards on 10 July.
EG sat in on some of the sessions to find out more.
Mentor: CBRE
Mentee: Centric Lab
Purpose of session: How to apply what Centric Lab does to the occupier world.
It wants to use neuroscience to create the best possible work environment for talent. It believes neuroscience can fill the gap in the decision-making process when it comes to selecting a location in which to set up an office.
Through its mentoring sessions with CBRE, Centric Lab is working out how to translate neuroscience into a commercial, viable relationship.
A lack of human performance in the workplace costs businesses billions annually but by studying how humans work, Centric Lab believes it can bring this loss of money and loss of productivity down. One of the big questions posed during the sessions was that business – and real estate – has never really asked how to drive the performance of its people from an occupational perspective. The group pondered how it would bring that question into a business case for a location decision.
Click here to find out more about Centric Lab
Mentor: LGIM Real Assets
Mentee: Skyscape
Purpose of session: How both parties can work together to reach the skies.
Skyscape seeks to utilise rooftops to create income for landlords and LGIM is one of the UK’s largest landlords.
Skyscape believes the answer to a city’s problem with space is to maximise the utilisation of rooftops. It will pitch to the Tech Academy audience its modelling expertise, which it says helps asset owners identify which of its buildings’ rooftops can be better utilised and can identify potential acquisition targets.
For LGIM, the investment performance of any building depends on the ability to drive a long-term commercial relationship with its occupier. And with occupiers looking for improved amenities and sustainable infrastructure – alongside enhanced connectivity and flexible leasing – it believes that future-proofing assets will play a fundamental role in maximising building performance.
Jon Avery, head of platform technology and change, at LGIM Real Assets, says: “For LGIM Real Assets, Skyscape fits well within this mix, it can help us identify and monitor what tends to be an underutilised building asset; the roof.”
Click here to find out more about Skyscape
Mentor: KPMG
Mentee: Aphex
Purpose of session: Discovering ways to scale the business and take it global.
Aphex is a data analysis tool designed to drive efficiencies in the construction sector. With KPMG as its mentor, Aphex is hoping to drill further down into what the industry really needs. It wants to be a product that is really essential to the industry, not just a nice to have.
The focus of the mentoring session was about how to position the business as more than just a product supplier. It wants to be a catalyst for business change. Like all data analytics businesses, its biggest competitor is the simple Excel spreadsheet, a piece of tech used globally and understood and trusted by millions around the world.
To be more than just another product, Aphex has been using its sessions with KPMG to figure out whether it is a software or a solutions business and which of those would be most lucrative.
Click here to find out more about Aphex
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To send feedback, e-mail samantha.mcclary@egi.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @estatesgazette
