National chartered surveyor Bruton Knowles is today announcing a huge investment of over £400,000, through several key digital infrastructure projects.
The move is a further sign of the firm’s commitment to improving its processes and customer service, as well aiding the growth of the company, beyond its current fourteen offices based across the UK.
The five cutting-edge projects, which are being rolled out throughout 2024, aim to support the work of Bruton Knowles’ National Teams across the UK and is work that is two years in the making.
Paul Martin, Bruton Knowles’ IT Director, has been overseeing much of the investment, and says the projects will revolutionise the way the firm works: “These projects are a huge commitment from Bruton Knowles. It is very much a case of future-proofing and getting all of our systems in line with one another. This will set the firm up well for the next few years of growth.
“We have recognised the challenges our staff face, and planned this huge investment in the company’s systems to help bring positive change.
It is great to see that these projects have already helped us stand out to win long-term contracts with large clients across our National Teams, with projects all over the UK.”
These include the flagship piece of software, Project Waymark, which consists of a bespoke application for use by Land Referencing across the firm, as well as integrating with industry standard mapping systems, and the online HM Land Registry database. Project Waymark is the fruits of over £100,000 of investment.
The Bruton Knowles Asset Valuation and Building Consultancy teams will be supported with mobile document generation tool, GoReport, which includes cloud-based web capabilities allowing for easy collaboration between colleagues. GoReport consists of a £10,000 per year investment for access to its user licenses.
The chartered surveyor’s telephony systems will be getting an upgrade, in moving to the Cloud. The shift to cloud-hosted office solution, BT Cloud Work, will provide simplified call handling procedures, making it even easier for Bruton Knowles’ people to work from wherever they are needed. This is an investment worth thousands of pounds that will bring further efficiencies to Bruton Knowles employees and its customers.
Rounding out the innovation is a brand-new AI-powered property valuation system, Valos, which puts Bruton Knowles at the forefront of the industry. Valos helps source data from comprehensive online databases, giving the National Valuation Team an easier way of compiling information into visually appealing reports, and drastically cutting administration time for employees. It is one of the first introductions of AI into the way of working at Bruton Knowles, as the company adds to its cutting-edge approach to work.
Through the introduction of beSlick, workflow efficiencies will be managed, too, with the tool designed to help reduce turnaround times and automate certain tasks and processes – essentially gifting staff more time to provide customers with solutions to their problems.
The investment is huge for the customer base of Bruton Knowles, but also its employees. Employees have already been given full training on these industry-leading technologies, improving time and cost efficiencies in a very short period of time.
It also marks Bruton Knowles out as an innovative employer in the sector, as Neil Young, HR Director at Bruton Knowles, adds: “Many of these IT projects are industry-leading and help us to establish Bruton Knowles as an outstanding business within the sector.
“It will also assist with our continued recruitment campaign, as applicants are really looking into the finer details of what a company can offer them – and investment in systems such as those we have made play a big part in that decision process.
“By investing in technology that helps keeps us at the forefront of innovation within our sector, it also enables our workforce to remain flexible and available to work from wherever best suits their needs – another huge area we considered when investing this amount of capital back into the firm.”
As Paul says, this is just the beginning of the innovation for Bruton Knowles: “The exciting thing is this is just the start of an exciting future for the business. These new systems will be the cornerstone of our transformation. We are always looking into new ways in which we can bring in further efficiencies in the way we operate, to help benefit our staff and clients.”
For more information on Bruton Knowles, and the firm’s work, click here.