Welcome to Property Shapers, our annual magazine which examines the key trends affecting real estate. In this edition, we explore the unstoppable march of technology, examine how disruption is shaking up established sectors, highlight the global trends affecting the industry and share some of the news from the Mishcon de Reya Real Estate team.
Disruption is rife throughout the property industry. Established players are constantly threatened by new challenges and, in turn, are having to consider how they can use space differently, build more efficiently and harness technology to challenge conventional wisdom and ways of working. Flexibility is key as both work and living environments need to respond to inherent space and budgetary constraints, whilst also reflecting new ways in which people are living and working. The rules have changed. We are seeing this at first hand through our work with a range of clients across varied sectors including flexible workplace and living, build to rent and student and retirement accommodation.
Disruption is also very much alive in the Real Estate team at Mishcon de Reya. We are pleased to be working alongside some of the leading disruptors in the real estate industry both as clients and partners. MDR LAB, our technology incubator, has returned for the second year running and now includes a dedicated property technology category, which is sponsored by clients, Derwent London and Coyote. Through last year's programme we mentored Orbital Witness, a new business that aggregates satellite data to provide a high quality assessment of the legal risks attached to property transactions.
We are also proud to have a recognised home-grown disruptor amongst our ranks in the shape of our head of property technology, Nick Kirby. Nick was singled out by The Lawyer as the leading legal tech disruptor in 2018.
Our clients are front and centre of our tech efforts and we recognise that agility, accuracy and an efficient turnaround is of the essence. Our team of prop tech experts are using bespoke Artificial Intelligence programmes developed in-house to speed up transactions where multiple documents, such as leases, ASTs and construction papers, need to be reviewed. Our team's creation of Mishcon Maps, an online mapping tool, and Solaris, a data extraction tool, have both also allowed us to significantly reduce the time taken to produce data as part of a transaction and to supply bespoke data sets for clients to use for the lifetime of an asset(s).
We continue to bring together the movers and shapers of the property industry at the annual Labour and Conservative Party Conferences through our Property Shapers dinners, hosted in conjunction with London Communications Agency. This, coupled with our continued support of the Estates Gazette Collaborators initiative, demonstrates our commitment to providing a forum for key industry players to debate the important issues of the day and to work together to solve them.
We would like to thank all of our clients and partners for their continued support and in particular those that have contributed to this edition of the magazine.
We look forward to working with you over the coming year and exploring ways in which we can help you embrace disruption in a positive way.
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