Property technology can transform a business but only if agents are prepared to devote time and effort to embed it properly, according to Kristjan Byfield, co-founder of automated end-of-tenancy platform The Depositary.

In conversation with Iain McKenzie, CEO of The Guild of Property Professionals, Byfield observed that the number of PropTech products on the market means agents should fully identify the problems they are trying to solve before choosing a potential solution.

“Agents should treat PropTech as a new member of staff,” he explained. “You wouldn’t hire someone and have them quietly slink into the role without letting people know who they are and what their role is within the business. It is the same with proptech.

“It is there to make a change, but no PropTech is going to switch on and transform your business overnight,” Byfield added.

“The right PropTech adopted in the right way can transform a business, but you have to make the right selection and have to make that commitment to embed it, as well as the discipline to come back to it every six months or every year to see if it is still the best solution because good products will evolve.”

McKenzie agreed with Byfield’s analogy, commenting: “If you hired a member of staff and inducted them and trained them and they started doing well after a given period, you wouldn’t not talk to them for six or 12 months, would you?”

Continuing the theme, Byfield said: “You would come back to them and ask what’s next? How can you get that extra two or three percentage in performance.”

In terms of proptech, this extra performance might be a setting or feature that had not being utilised to its full capacity, Byfield observed. “Alternately, there could have been a better product developed within the time frame that goes far beyond what the current product does,” he added.

“It is important to keep investigating, keep investing and keep evolving, and that’s what we plan to do as a supplier.”