Our client started life disrupting the already established
industries of property security and short term rental by providing the new
solution of Protection by Occupation.
Initially targeted at securing and protecting vacant properties this model was
soon adopted by Councils, government agencies, developers and private property
owners as a cost effective and secure way to protect empty properties.
With fast growth came operational issues. The demands of the
service meant there was a need to manage and maintain properties often in need
of attention while the original processes of screening and management of
residents did not scale well, becoming onerous. Simply providing the service
was becoming difficult, leading to leaks in profitability and a weakening
customer service.
“We had made significant growth in the Netherlands and UK
but were struggling to keep our business information up to date and follow
agreed processes to manage the business.” said Joost van Gestel founder and CEO
of B-Right Urban Living. “We had engaged a software consultancy to create a
bespoke property management platform but they were making little progress in
understanding our needs so we needed a new approach”
We were referred to Joost by the company providing
infrastructure services in their London office. A good relationship was quickly
established enabling us to propose a new bespoke web based solution to manage
the full lifecycle of operations which was accepted and given the go ahead.
With the new platform in place the company was able to grow
and manage the business without having to increase the working headcount
significantly.
Properties could be managed and maintained in a timely
manner and promised services were not missed. A mobile application was
developed to record property inspections. The important task of ensuring
potential residents were appropriate for the buildings they would live in was
streamlined to be more efficient. All of this was achieved using a fully
digital workflow approach. All contracts were automatically generated and
signed digitally. Applications for properties were managed by the commercial
website which was updated in real time by the operational platform.
A full suite of management reporting was created to give
employees in all functions at all levels the details they needed to see where
effort should be focused and how year on year growth was being achieved.
Due to the cloud based architecture the business was also
able to expand their geographic presence locating 18 offices in 6 European
countries to become the market leaders in the Protection by Occupation real
estate sphere.
Later enhancements to link the operation platform to a new
implementation of Salesforce and Exact Globe (finance) further enhanced their
ability to provide a highly efficient and high quality service to their
clients.
“Bill was able to understand the main issues we were facing,
providing, and improving key solutions technically and with our processes to
help us focus on growth” JvG B-Right Urban Living.
The company has since evolved providing a mixed portfolio of
residential, security, and commercial real estate and development services with
a focus on regenerating the urban landscape to develop sustainable properties
focused on nurturing communities and a high standard of living. No longer a
start up or even scale up enterprise they continue to go from strength to
strength.
<< Back to Case Studies