Bricks & More: Unlocking Real Estate Value

Wired for Value: Digital Infrastructure as a Market Differentiator | Tom Vaughan-Fowler, WiredScore

• Adrian Strittmatter • Season 2 • Episode 2

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In this episode of Bricks & More, Adrian Strittmatter is joined by Tom Vaughan Fowler, Regional Director at WiredScore, to explore how digital infrastructure has become a cornerstone of modern real estate value.

From office towers in Mayfair to industrial parks in the Middle East, Tom has seen first-hand how connectivity, resilience, and smart technology are no longer “nice-to-haves” but essential drivers of competitiveness. He shares how WiredScore is bridging the widening gap between fast-moving technology and slow-moving real estate — and why the buildings of tomorrow will live or die by their digital backbone.

Key talking points:

🔌 How WiredScore certification helps future-proof assets and boost rental premiums

🏙️ Why connectivity is now as fundamental as water or power — and a major tenant dealbreaker

🏗️ The challenge (and opportunity) of retrofitting historic and listed buildings for 21st century demands

📶 Why 5G and 6G may worsen in-building connectivity — and how landlords can get ahead

♻️ How digital infrastructure underpins ESG goals by enabling smarter energy use and predictive maintenance

If you think “internet is just the tenant’s problem,” this conversation will make you reconsider.

Tom’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-vaughan-fowler-59777a46/ 
WiredScore: https://wiredscore.com/ 

Adrian’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianstrittmatter 
Saentys: https://saentys.com/

Adrian Strittmatter:

Today we are zooming in on a crucial component of modern day and future-proofed real estate value. I'm talking about digital infrastructure. In a world where connectivity, technology, and user experience are shaping tenant expectations, how do you ensure your asset isn't just meeting the minimum but setting the new benchmark? How do you future-proof buildings so they remain desirable, functional, and valuable in the long run? So in this episode we'll unpack how smart tech, digital certifications and resilient infrastructure have become essential to creating market leading assets, not just now, but for the years ahead. To unpack this, I'm joined by Tom Vaughan Fowler, regional Director at Wiredscore, the Global Digital Connectivity Certification for Real Estate. With a background in real estate advisory and prop tech innovation, Tom now helps landlords, developers, and investors unlock value by future proofing their buildings through digital infrastructure, smart technology and connectivity standards. At Wiredscore, he works across two of the world's most dynamic regions, advising on how technology can enhance user experience, ESG performance and long-term asset competitiveness. In a market where digital expectations are rising fast, Tom brings deep insight into how connectivity can become a true differentiator and not just a tick box. So let's dive straight in. welcome to Brick some more more

Tom Fowler:

Thank you for having me.

Adrian Strittmatter:

Great pleasure Uh worked together a couple in sort of our previous uh Knight Frank My at Saentys but um what is it over the last couple years you know your real estate experience that drew you know Digital connectivity for lack of a better word

Tom Fowler:

If I'm being totally honest, I think I was drawn more to, wired school where I work we'll come in a second than I was digital connectivity. so I'd been at Knight Frank for. 10 years or so Mm-hmm and two different people, approached me to give me a heads up about a job that was going at this company called Widescore. And I just said, no. Straight away I thought I'm, if I'm being completely honest, I wasn't very interested in PropTech at the time either, but they persuaded me to. At least have a call with the company. I had a call with, with someone who's now our CEO and thought they were great, very compelling. And then I had a call with the person who ended up hiring me and I was thought, okay, fantastic. And something twigged. I thought if, if these two people who are clearly intelligent, ambitious, hardworking, but also just nice, which quite important, if they think there's something in this, I should probably have a look at it as well. and it was that classic case of applying, going through quite a rigorous interview And the more work I did for the interviews and the application, the more I wanted it. and that was the time when I learned what they were doing, the problem they were trying to solve. My potential place within that business, completely different to, to Knight Frank, for better and worse. know, Mm-hmm I from a very, very large, company that'd been going for 125 years or something to a much smaller company that's now been going just over 10 years. There are pros and cons that come with that, but it's been a very happy move. And

Adrian Strittmatter:

And take on that journey And and process also define the Word how that take you on the journey from not what they did to now and know what they do so

Tom Fowler:

So, first of foremost, Widescore is a certification. you might see, physically on a building or in a brochure or on a website, a wired score seal. if you can see that on a building, it could be an office building, a residential scheme. We've just started an industrial certification as well. Having that seal, having a Wiredscore certification denotes that that building has very good digital technology and smart technology. and so what we are trying help is to solve this ever widening gap, which is that real estate takes a long time mm-hmm It takes long time in planning, acquisition, leasing, exit. It's a clunky, slow moving asset class, but tech is completely opposite. Tech's evolving at a pace that none of us really keep a handle on. Tech matters in this real estate environment. So how do you work with a project that might take five, 10 years Deliver, during Which time there will be maybe 20 iPhone updates, let alone how many BMS or software applications? And one of the values of our certification is trying to bridge that gap. So empower landlords and developers with the sort of information design ideas, asset management initiatives that will ultimately end up in a better Wiredscore certification. Mm-hmm. But more importantly, end up in a better building and a better customer experience. And

Adrian Strittmatter:

And as it currently stands then a few could you us a few metrics for for the company Like how many

Tom Fowler:

We are in 40 countries the world, as in we're certifying buildings in countries. Um, we have offices in North America, across Europe, India, Southeast Asia, and about to expand into China as which is really, really exciting. and we recently passed the billion square foot mark of assets under certification, which is great'cause that purposes for us. One is a validity thing. Yeah If we see a, a fund manager or a head of asset management or something, hopefully they've heard of us, but if they have, if I'm honest, we're probably quite low down their list of absolutely fine. And saying we're on a billion square foot means okay. They can probably be trusted because if people are working with them, they can't record it that wrong all the time. But what it also means is that. When we are growing and evolving, and that could be improving existing products or trying to launch new ones, we've got this awesome So rather than just going, okay, we think we should do industrial, let's go away and build an industrial product, we'll talk to existing customers, existing clients, their occupies, their advisors, and start to build a picture of what do we need to do to be effective in the market, and what starting to solve? So as the business continues to grow. That flywheel of improvement and evolution goes faster and faster, which is really exciting.

Adrian Strittmatter:

And mentioned the different asset classes So which asset classes are you currently active

Tom Fowler:

we do commercial, by office uh, industrial, so all types of industrial and logistics. and most of the living sectors. So most of that would be build to rent or as our American friends, we call it multi-family. We're looking at some single family stuff at the moment. We do a lot of, student, a bit of co-living, some care home stuff. so a real, a, a broad breadth,

Adrian Strittmatter:

A breadth Um and into these different markets obviously I I I suspect that I within a country you'll see different levels of Connectivity or performance across the board I mean what you say the main differences are between different I core markets you guys in in terms of the buildings the assets

Tom Fowler:

It's a good question. So some of that will be led by the market they're in. Mm-hmm a market is booming, it could have predominantly secondary stock or predominantly primary stock, but there is capital and a volition to do cool things. So the appetite for technology is, is proven

Adrian Strittmatter:

as

Tom Fowler:

If, if a market's on its knees as, as much of the Western Hemispheres office markets have been over the last few years, kinda doesn't matter what the building's like, what the surrounding infrastructure is like, it's gonna be really hard to, and interesting, project off the ground. What I would say is that, part of my role is looking after the Middle East side of as well. well Talk about a growth area. and that's on a building level, but these are, people are building, new cities, new regions, new territories. It's very, very cool to be a part of that because if someone says, well, we've, we've got a massively ambitious project to deliver connectivity infrastructure to 40 square miles of previously undeveloped land, there's a good chance that we can fit in and do something on, things as well. Whereas if you're working on projects in Mayfair. Which is dense, historic, beautiful, and a great place to work. As a result, it definitely becomes harder to hit some of those technological targets, I think.

Adrian Strittmatter:

yeah definitely And as another service provider that are do get mandated on asset by asset level dream is on the level across the board

Tom Fowler:

Yeah. the reality is the former, the ambition is the latter. Yeah, exactly. there are a number of clients we work with, globally where we will work on a portfolio and, but most of our work would come on a, on a building by building basis.

Adrian Strittmatter:

And terms of you know you you started role you've definitely embedded and developed the role as What it that energizes you about Widescore at the moment and the and the view the future

Tom Fowler:

I, I like doing new things and as we're very good, I think, at doing an example of that would be the industrial certification that we launched early this year. So, um, that had been in the pipeline for a number of months, and launched this year and it was. Amazing to me to see all these people around the business who are far clever than I, I'm a far more than I start building something that my team and I can then take to market. And so we'll do more asset class expansion and we'll do more geographic expansion the coming years. So those are really the two ways we expand. We expand vertically different sectors, and regionally into different parts of the world, and ultimately the companies. Perhaps slightly lofty ambition is to be able to certify any building anywhere in the world. That's what we're aiming for and it's very cool seeing that take shape bit by bit, be it a new sector or a new country.

Adrian Strittmatter:

I think that's interesting because we get sort asked the same question around what's the between space versus a retail space or say Why there a requirement what were the metrics that meant that there was a requirement to have those different sector based Products and therefore certifications

Tom Fowler:

So it started, it started with the office market, and the genesis of Wiredscore quite a easy way to explain what we do. So it was founded in New York Mm-hmm and Michael Bloomberg was mayor of New York at the time. And the story goes that he was trying to attract lots of tech occupiers from that traditional San Francisco coast enclave into New York City. And the feedback was, was two main things. Firstly. The digital connectivity in your buildings is appalling. And secondly, we don't know about it until we've signed a 10 year lease. We're on the hook for four rent checks a year, and the landlord's not particularly fussed about helping solve this problem. if you want more of us to come here with more jobs, more taxation, more inserts, indirect benefit here, this needs to be fixed. so Michael b Bloomberg basically put out a an RFP saying. Anyone got any ideas? And the winning bid became what was then called Wired NYC. Um, so it was Michael Bloomberg. Um, and then adopted by Boris, actually when he was mayor of London 2015. So that's where we The, the principle of that, of being able to, build better buildings and display that you have done so translates to all of the sectors that we work in, in the residential sector. It's slightly different if you think about it with your marketing It's, it's one to very many. Whereas if we're talking to office occupies, it's, it's one to few, there are lots But if you're talking to build to rent customers, there might be thousands in one building. If you were to stop many build to rent customers on a street and say, who is Widescore? I'd be I'd be very surprised if you got an answer from any of them. I don't think they would know if you were to stop'em on the street and say. What is the most important thing to you about your building? Somewhere quite closely after location is, does the internet work? it's, it's that simple. Then COVID hits and what we were using our homes for suddenly changed unrecognizably, and the fact that many of these buildings weren't actually fit purpose became really, really apparent to a lot people.

Adrian Strittmatter:

across the cycle

Tom Fowler:

we're streaming, people teaching their kids with your internet connections, going down, trying to do work calls. God knows what sorts of sensitive, um, done from like some fairly dodgy hotspots and things like that. and then you look at the industrial sector, now it comes back to what is going on inside those buildings. They're increasingly really terms of their automation, the use of robotics, the adoption of AI and iot technology. So. To try and bring a very rambling answer to a conclusion. it always starts with the end user. end user benefit of having better digital connectivity and more smart technology in the building? If we can't crack that, we shouldn't be in that sector.

Adrian Strittmatter:

Going back to the Bloomberg example in terms of the genesis of Wiredscore and I think that's very clear of having a trustworthy certification to say guys you can move this building It's digitally safe or connected would you that on kind of back to the main focus of the podcast around real estate value say digital connectivity translates into real estate value

Tom Fowler:

We've got a lot of data that the rental premium you get for Wiredscore certified buildings versus non WiredScore certified buildings. So, in London it's coming out to about 8% the moment. And every Headline Rent in every major market across the UK has been set by a Wiredscore building. I'm not saying for a minute, it's only been set an, it's an association of kind what's expected from a best in class, building. we've got lots of data that we did in conjunction with Moody's, the, analyst credit rating company shows longer leases, shorter vacancies, higher rents. So being able to prove that ROI is really, really but ultimately it's much similar to my previous answer, it comes back to the customer. If you prove to your customer that the building meets those requirements, you will be able to secure their leases for longer. You will have lower vacancy periods, where a funding requirement for many people now who will say, look, if you want a great big check to go and build this scheme, one of the probably many safety measures we'd like to have in place is a good Wiredscore rating because we know that the products we are paying you to deliver hits certain market premises.

Adrian Strittmatter:

You about sort rating and there are other ratings and to promote your competitors but are there others in

Tom Fowler:

we're in the fortunate position where as, as far as I know, we're the biggest, biggest, doesn't mean best stretch of the imagination, think it gives us that advantage about your product evolution and stuff like that. we launched a rating for, smart buildings in 2021 called Smart School.

Adrian Strittmatter:

Mm-hmm

Tom Fowler:

A number of other people did the same thing at a, at a similar time and we got really worried about, you know, are we lots of other people doing this. And someone made the really good point that if other people think this is a good idea, it's a good thing for the'cause it means we're not the only people who

Adrian Strittmatter:

in the certification, what percentage now of if we take the London market of sort best in class buildings what would of them that have the Wiredscore

Tom Fowler:

It's Yeah. Yeah, which is great. I'd say London globally is one of our most adopted so although you've been in New York for longer, I would say on a, that percentage of, of prime buildings doing it, I think London's one of our highest. And apart from obviously

Adrian Strittmatter:

And apart from obviously your involvement in that you say can't you with and forth And then there's a to them as well in

Tom Fowler:

clients calls'em swimming badges.

Adrian Strittmatter:

yeah yeah

Tom Fowler:

you can, you can get a certification for everything I think many of them are doing a great job for great, great reasons. and we just have to be really confident that when when we build something new, it can stand up on its own two I, I definitely think there's certification fatigue. and I, like, I think, to be quite honest, there's a lot of ESG fatigue at the moment as well, and people, are wondering what the role of that part of the real estate sector is at the moment, particularly with, direction coming outta the US government in terms of where that stands within their own priorities and how many other people have to follow suit So we're very, very aware of that. You, it's a, it's a crowded environment. there are, yeah. Lots of them. I think crucially, they all address a slightly different niche, be it or environmental design or environmental in occupation. and to be able to, as I said, stand up with your own identity is, is tantamount to any enduring success.

Adrian Strittmatter:

I think if we stay within sort of of The the let's say London for example and you look at a real estate environment which is extremely varied in terms of we'll jump into Retrofit a bit later but say are the core call potentially a strong backbone what are requirements I mean 85 is an amazing score you say that that that backbone is of of being able to get those accreditations and badges

Tom Fowler:

resilience and readiness would be the two key words I'd use for, so, resilience for example, would be how secure is your supply of digital connectivity? So if you think about it as a utility coming into much in the way we have, water and heating and gas and so on, internet supply is very much one of those things. If it's coming from one point outside the building via one conduit into one point inside the building only one thing has to go wrong for the entire operation to shut down. So you can build in resilience into a backbone of a building by diversity, diversity of supply, diversity of roots in and around a diversity of ISPs available to occupiers in the site. And then the other, aspect that I mentioned was readiness. We talk a lot at Wiredscore about proofing. and we have to be very careful, I think when we talk about future briefing because we don't have a clue what the a la mode technology of five years time will be in the office sector or the resi sector or the industrial sector. We've got an idea of where it's going, really know. And anyone who tells you otherwise I think is, is. Probably telling a bit of a tall tale. So when we talk about future proofing to our clients, we are not trying to encourage them to spend money on tech for tech's sake or agree to some multi-year SaaS agreements or hardware provider that you are locked into in the hope that it's relevant in five Mm-hmm. Readiness has a lot more to do with, the physical capacity and design of a building. So. A good way of thinking about this might be when office buildings switch from copper supply of internet to predominantly supply of internet 10, 15 years ago, whenever that was. If you've got that one conduit referred to earlier coming into a building and you want to switch it from copper to fiber, you need to shut down the whole building. Pull the copper out, bring the fiber back in, whole building back on. If you have spare capacity in your network, your comms room, your roof space, you can bring in a fiber supply into building, switch it copper to fiber without anyone knowing, and then the copper out afterwards. That's how you futureproof by making it physically adaptable, Mm-hmm as I said, we, we don't know what's coming around the corner, but if you can build in physical and digital capacity into the design, you're much likely to keep pace with change.

Adrian Strittmatter:

Those key points are interesting because they lead to this next one which what would you say the key misconception is around what is broadly speaking good connectivity you say is the key misconception there

Tom Fowler:

the key misconception is, and I do believe this is changing, but from a, from a lot of people who are developers, landlords, etc the key misconception is this is an occupier problem. And that's just not case at all. 10 years ago, it might well have been, it might. Look, we've built beautiful building, look how much we spent on marble in the lobby. This We, is amazing. And they'll be able to get the internet from somewhere. That's just not the case anymore. And a lot of landlords and developers have wised up to this, and I'm offering this much more of a, a service But fundamentally, a tenant isn't going to work out how to bring a duct into a basement and how to equip a, a comms room because it's not their space in the building and they don't have control of it. So if you don't do that as a landlord or a developer, it's never going to become a, a reality for anyone who is occupying that building applies to Uh, sorry, residential, industrial offices, et cetera. So that's been one of the larger misconceptions that I do believe is changing over time. But it's the most common thing that we run into when people say, yeah, it sounds like a sensible idea, but I'd never do this occupier issue. You can do so much as a landlord or a developer to really streamline that, make easy and, make it just a better customer experience.

Adrian Strittmatter:

just to reinstate I think and this is something that we talked about pre-chat the importance of connectivity And behavior interaction with connectivity You have really interesting stats Could you share them in terms why it is so important

Tom Fowler:

Yeah I think terrifying In the office sector, research shows that a an hour of downtime costs the average business$300,000 in lost revenue, lost productivity, et cetera, et cetera. For a company like Wiredscore that. Relatively small, be a lot less than that for, uh, I won't name names, companies that get it wrong, often, it'll be a lot more than that. A cost of downtime who have big companies, small company, an hour will cost more than a quarter of rent, which is just staggering to me. Um, and then you switch to, for example, the residential sector, where I recently learned that on average, we all have seven connected devices, I don't, I don't. I didn't believe, I didn't want to believe. And then I quite quickly went well, like watch phone, laptop, iPads. It might be a smart meter in the kitchen, it might be an Alexa. You can get to seven Pretty quickly. and it's just become an absolutely unavoidable and incredibly important part of our lives, and we have to build the real estate and the infrastructure to allow it to work.

Adrian Strittmatter:

Mm-hmm And it's interesting you talked about at the beginning it was like the first things that people look at whether go to an Airbnb and say they have whatever Yeah How does compare to the other value drivers terms of such and perception in terms of the way that people engage with the have you seen go up the in

Tom Fowler:

during, during COVID, I remember that, um, my old Knight Frank, did a, a buyer's sentiment reports basically like, what are the top 10 things people care Now, obviously this was. Heavily the, the way we were working and living at the time. You, you know, a, on a desk in your flat couldn't go anywhere. But at the time, internet access and internet provision, outstripped, amenities, transport, it became the number one Obviously that's softened since, but what has happened those ways of working have diluted but have broadly stayed as well. So I think that

Adrian Strittmatter:

well we still use them the

Tom Fowler:

I think being able to evidence that you're still meeting those really high standards is incredibly important because also I. live in a world of third party reviews, right? You a holiday without going on TripAdvisor. you probably wouldn't book a restaurant without looking at a review. You wouldn't go and see a play without reading a review. So much of what we do, we're relying on third parties to verify. So one thing we try to do is, is to say to many of our developers clients who do this brilliantly without our involvement, yes, you've done a great job. We'll add some technical value, but we're also gonna help you shout about it, because it more compelling for you. If you're taking someone on a tour of a build to rent block and they say, how's the internet here? If the developer says It's great, trust me. They'll probably go, okay, well you, if a developer goes, it's great, but you don't have to trust me. Here's a company who are a globally recognized certification body who kind of just do this. That's somewhere where we, where we think we can help.

Adrian Strittmatter:

Can everyone get the accreditation especially when we're looking at more sort of retrofitting of Yeah How much more work is to do how is it for everyone to sort of

Tom Fowler:

Yeah. So yes is the answer. So any office building can, can get, Wiredscore certified if, if they do the right things. The are hurdles to clear. I would love to say to you that best in class digital connectivity is just as easy for a retrofit project as it is for a new build because I firmly believe that we should be a retrofitting more buildings. It's not the case. It's not the case you're dealing with a blank sheet of paper and you start sketching comms, ducks rooms and intakes and so on, it's a lot easier than it would be to do a, to do a retrofit. But what's been really interesting, I think, is the way that the technology market, what is on offer from tech providers has moved to embrace retrofit projects and how actually a lot of hardware is now being designed with retrofit projects in mind, so, How would we plug into an existing BMS and be able to offer a layer of sophistication from an energy reporting point of view or a metering point of view that it wouldn't have originally had, but we can do it without someone having to dig up the basement and spend 500 grand to a million pounds on a, on a brand new BMS. And the same applies to to connectivity. So. Because more people are doing it. The providers of software and hardware are moving to accordingly, so it is becoming easier and easier. and we've worked on some, some really, really cool projects. Beautiful old buildings where you might have thought this is gonna be, you know, bottom of the list from a they've been able to do some great things as well as preserving these kind of wonderful heritage environments.

Adrian Strittmatter:

But interesting Are there any Major When you're with kind of projects any major challenges whether it's architectural whether it's historical what the kind

Tom Fowler:

a lot of those people might say, well actually, we we're doing this on a phase by phase basis. We don't have vacant possession of the entire building because estate fund and if anyone's willing to stay and pay us rent while we do this, we'd quite like'em to stay and, and pay us rent. With some of those, well, it might just be like the below ground works as well. So if we come back to the, to the Mayfair example, something that we look for for a wise school certification is having two points of entry for So a duct coming in from one side of the building and a duct coming in the other, when. The team are doing roadworks at the front of the building, accidentally sliced through that fiber. You've got another one in the back in, in a very dated, historic environment full of buildings right up alongside other in small, narrow streets. That's necessarily a harder thing to do. But then you look at something like, starlink, which is a really good of a technical evolution where suddenly without any below groundwork, whatever you may think of, Elon Musk. And I can promise you, I'm no fan. Having that as a, as a second connection that comes back to the diversity and the resilience and some of those buzzwords I mentioned earlier that we were touching on. So a great example of the tech market moving on to solve have, demonstrate, need addressing.

Adrian Strittmatter:

Do you see there's a link the work that you do and the kind of broader ESG and sustainability narrative How do how

Tom Fowler:

I think there's, I always try to tread carefully here because. Many people might say, oh, Wiredscore is an ESG accreditation? Because most accreditations and certifications are for ESG purposes, and we kind of get that bracket and it's not a bad place to be by any stretch of imagination. But we're not a green building certification and we're always quite clear to Be you honest about that. Not try that we're something that we're not. But so much of what people are trying to achieve from an energy point of view and from an environmental point of view, can be accelerated or done better with the use of technology. And I think technology is a great enabler for environmental improvement and better energy use. And if you think about, many of our clients rolling out smart meters across their idea of which tenant is doing what in what space and how they're using their energy. How can we adjust human behavior accordingly? If you don't have a working digital connection behind all that, you're not gonna get anywhere. anywhere simple as that. And then you look at the really advanced things that people are doing in some of the world's truly smartest buildings and the sorts of things they could do with predictive maintenance. and trying to influence how customers make decisions based on their own energy usage and what they're using their facilities for. A lot of that is gonna rely good digital backbone and a great tech experience. So we're not a green building certification, but I'd like to think we play a role in helping our customers achieve those goals.

Adrian Strittmatter:

I mean there's super easy between energy consumption And smart building maintenance And the work that do. As kind Very sort of brush question is one building that stands out in terms of its connectivity and all that could say okay the poster child of of Wiredscore

Tom Fowler:

really that there are, there are a few. So on our pitch there are some really cool iconic buildings. I love the fact that we have for a long time certified, the Empire State Building and the Gerkin or Mary's Act as they're known. when I was a graduate thirties, Mary's Act was a pretty sexy, shiny But I was Very long time ago. Um, and it's not that new really cool be working on buildings like that and to see that something like the Empire State Building can still do this and, and do it really, really well. One Bangkok stands out. ICD Brookfield in the Middle East these are, Really, really cool buildings. But they started from that blank piece of earlier. And I think my favorite example, one that I put on LinkedIn not that long ago, is I believe it's 78, St. James, which is owned by Bentel GreenLake, which is a beautiful building with this sort of. Wonderful interior domed roof incredible decoration. It's a stunning, stunning building with some really, really cool tech working there as well. And it's a great example of being able to marry the element of, of building design and, and the aesthetic element alongside modern technological capacity as well. It's really cool.

Adrian Strittmatter:

No that's really good cause I people could view that as a barrier to Totally some way shape or we talked about are there any other elements around building performance where Wiredscore's come in and even identified new pockets I say a value creation or performance that could that you could kind of mention

Tom Fowler:

I, I think probably the, the thing we're coming across most at the moment that we wouldn't have been doing two or three years ago is mobile performance. so we're doing more and more work with our customers on how solve the thorny issue that. You can be standing outside a 40 foot skyscraper in the city and have five bars of 5G signal, and then you go up 30 floors and it dies. because 5G while better for upload speeds and download speeds and allowing us to do loads more with our phones, as well as doing it faster, it's rubbish at getting in and outer buildings, it's weaker than 4G six G that's coming online soon will be weaker than 5G. So Yeah. the, the different frequencies they operate. So what you gain in speed, you lose in, what's the right way of putting it, power, getting through things. Steel, concrete, glass. Not good for 5G, really bad for for six G, which is why in so many modern buildings your phone doesn't work. So we're doing more and more work on that and seeing more and more, office developers and office landlords starts to offer 5G boosting solutions as a added service. and it's been a really interesting way to, to watch the market move.

Adrian Strittmatter:

say in terms of that a kind really sort of I'd say of anecdote around The that tech interacts with buildings Have been any secondary sort of unexpected benefits you know like when they invented the mobile phone I this is true or not but I'll say it anyway that people didn't or or text messaging really think that that gonna be its Have you guys found that with tech within buildings where you've been people have adopted it in a different way or taken it in direction

Tom Fowler:

Not, not directly, one thing I think we were surprised about was when we first started doing work on smart buildings in 2021, the appetite from developers best in class buildings was predominantly, I want everything. I want it to do this, this. I want every functionality I can think of from my app or my BMS and et cetera. That attitude has actually really changed to narrow the focus. So a lot of people will now say. I don't want an app that does 40 that does 8,000 things. I want an app that does five things brilliantly that people are actually going use and A BMS that does a smaller concentration of things. So people's what? What we never expected, I don't think, was that I. Everyone always used to ask us, what's the next big thing in smart building technology? What's the thing we haven't thought about? Now everyone asks us what is the thing people use most? The, the, the, The what That

Adrian Strittmatter:

That toothbrush

Tom Fowler:

The approach from developers has changed completely cuz it costs money. If we're invest money in these things, we want to know that people use it. and so little things, for example, like. Many building apps will have some sort of, newsfeed on them. It could be local could be events going on in the area. A lot of landlords will look at that information, analyze the click through rates, and then say, oh, so, a load of people were interested in the, The new cupcake stand that's opening in the market next door, we're gonna put on a cupcake making class in the lobby. And sure enough, loads of people turn up to it because you've been able to use that sort of data. And that's a really good example of thinking, rather than flooding people with stuff, let's work out what's being used and do more of that, rather than hoping that by adding extra things to the cart, someone else might pick it up

Adrian Strittmatter:

Yeah About that cause there's that that that isn't there around sort of community building around a building around an asset and that generated And the utilization rate of the apps or wrong I dunno metric

Tom Fowler:

proxy.

Adrian Strittmatter:

Mm-hmm And back the different markets you're and Buildings that are on deck Yeah Yeah Is there example where you've really looked at a building and gone wow this is gonna be really challenging and that you've actually taken it on board and actually brought it to a place where you say okay this was the complete journey to a degree

Tom Fowler:

Yeah. Um, uh, one does spring to mind and I'm not sure it was because it was, a challenging setup, but because the, the scope of what the client was trying to achieve was so impressive. Mm-hmm we do lots of work across the UK with Kennedy Wilson, I can, I can think of. So. Bear Cooper's cross development in Dublin. a mixed development, incredible office buildings, really cool residential public realm. it's brilliant. And it was basically the, the blank piece of pa paper approach. And then we're also working with them on building called Waverly Gates up in Edinburgh behind finely enough, Waverly train Mm-hmm that is, I don't know how many, hundreds of years old grade one listed, part occupied, not vp. And they've done an amazing job there of. A great digital strategy, which is sure enough, worked out in a good Wiredscore certification. That's a really good example. That's always something I talk about in the, in the wire school pitch deck a lot of people would ask the same question as you've done, like, am I not inhibited by the very nature of the building we're talking about here? And you pull up that example and you go, look, if they can do a great job here with a building that is hundreds of years old and has all of these constraints, I'm pretty sure your 1970s business park is gonna be okay.

Adrian Strittmatter:

so with regards to we're about challenging environments the sort of building framework and you mentioned the station Are there markets where you could see them facing a bit more an uphill battle because the context or the infrastructure Do

Tom Fowler:

see that across Europe. It not by any means a level playing field, in terms of what local authorities would be doing from a basic provision of infrastructure point of view across the town or across Mm-hmm because it's all very well saying, right, I want two points of entry to the building for fiber to come into. If there isn't, if there aren't any fiber networks. They have been dug and rooted around a city at all. There's no capacity. There's no way of you getting that building online. It doesn't matter how many ducks you have, if, if nothing can get there. so there are, there are certain cities in Germany and the Netherlands where we've seen it be much more of a struggle. we've recently done an industrial certification in continental Europe where they just said. There is no internet here. which was probably more of a challenge than we've ever had. And actually we looked at that sort of starlink satellite as a, as a solution there. I think, I think the UK is slightly unfairly maligned in this respect. The

Adrian Strittmatter:

by

Tom Fowler:

I think, I think we do ourselves down, we look, we've not nailed 5G, we've not nailed 5G rollout by any stretch of imagination, and we are definitely behind our continental peers on that regard. But in terms of what is below ground, the networks that are able to serve pretty much any office, industrial sector, we're in a better place than we, than we think we are. We've got a pretty competitive set of internet service providers. We've got lots of challenger fiber providers trying to challenge the, the bigger beasts of the world. Whereas there are some countries in the world where we're working where. For example, a best in class Wiredscore office has three ISPs serving that building because that gives tenants power Higher standard of service, et cetera, et cetera. There are some countries working where they, they do not have three ISPs because there might be state controlled entities, or economy just hasn't evolved as such. So it is definitely a, not always a level playing field. The challenge for us then becomes how do we deliver a certification that is globally uniform? idea is that a widescore gold building in Austin, Texas should have a very similar a, widescore gold building in Bangkok Mm-hmm or whatever. But if you're not dealing with a level playing field, it becomes a big challenge for our product team to make sure that we are authentic and and consistent globally. It's a challenge. I'm glad I'm not tasked with solving.

Adrian Strittmatter:

Yeah that's really interesting in terms of the in terms of the infrastructure R that's available and is kind of outta your hands you are dealing with the context that you are that you are given Are there so we talked about some of the challenging markets there markets where where it's necessarily a blank sheet of paper where they've been able over the last 20 years to do things correctly Is there a market maybe that you go Yeah That's one to that's an easy one the fundamentals are kind

Tom Fowler:

I mean, most of the major cities, that would be the case. I it's where it's where local authorities and, and councils and mayor's offices have done a great job of thinking about this from a, a supply point of view and a, an infrastructure investment point of view. for example, we do a lot of work with the. Combined Greater Manchester Authority where they have someone who is basically in charge of the digital side of that whole massive conation in Northern England, which has a huge amount jobs, amount people, a huge amount of universities, and they've got someone who is responsible for exactly this and that. When you start pulling together the various, often disconnected parts of public sector, local authority and have someone who's driving that down a single route to. A, a uniform internet benefit to others. That's a great thing see it it. It shouldn't be difficult, but it often is. I, who's probably sat in this chair and talked to you about. Sector, public sector, local authority. I dread to think. How many people have bod about planning to you? it is, uh, it's a pretty

Adrian Strittmatter:

possibly say in terms of value creation then The value sort yeah Perception that Wired score brings. and we worked together on some investment projects when were at Knight Frank something people look at it's it's the of buying lease kind value element how see that that that

Tom Fowler:

biased, right? So I've got completely nonobject,

Adrian Strittmatter:

Yeah

Tom Fowler:

We often get instructed by people saying, look, we're about to sell.

Adrian Strittmatter:

thought Yeah

Tom Fowler:

We, we think that our market of buyers is institutional. We think your certification on the, on the brochure, is in some way going to, help from an capital point view. So there's a, a liquidity premium there. when I was at. Knight Frank. there was a brochure that I don't think you guys designed, but someone else did for a very, very large instruction that I'll have to, not name. but the, the brochure was printed in hardback and was going to be taken around the, the far for, tours, at the time. so someone got the great job of going to present this beautiful brochure, and the client had spent a lot of money on their portfolio, on a variety of things, including Wiredscore certification. And they said to Knight Frank at the time. well, we'd like to have more about the wise school stuff in the brochure, please. I wasn't at Wiredscore at the time and I wasn't on this instruction either, so I'm, I'm conflict, I'm not conflicted out. the client said we'd like to have, more mention of Wiredscore in this brochure, please. and we at Knight Frank said, well, it's not really any. Space, unfortunately. And the client said, well, there would be more space if you removed all the Knight Frank references. and that was the decision that was made.

Adrian Strittmatter:

and that's how you get edited

Tom Fowler:

Yeah, there you go. Exactly. so yeah, it does happen. we've seen, we've been involved in. A few people's fundraising prospectuses, which they're trying to create a picture of the sort of assets, sort of they're trying to assemble. And, as I keep saying, we are not the only show in town. There are lots of other and things that denote quality. but it's really cool to, play a part in that. And then there are a number of large multinational companies that. Won't sign an agreement for lease if Wiredscore's not in the building spec. And again, I'm sure it's the same for Brim or Lead well, or others too. It's really cool to hear about these and, and get calls from occupational agents saying, we're acting for so and so. They've got 500,000 square foot requirement. Can you tell us which of these six buildings as a wide school certification? But those companies don't move that often. They don't relocate that often. you know, once every five, 10 year type thing. What's really cool as happened the other day is when someone on a. Not particularly well known building called and said, we have a blocker while trying to lease 7,000 square foot of space to a FX trading firm because they've for a and we don't have Can we get one? How quickly can we have it done? That's actually more exciting than having the sort of blue chip chip. NASDAQ companies ask for us because those 7,000 square foot requirements, that churn of the market, that's what's happening day to day. Yeah. coming back to my point earlier about one to few versus one to many. How do we get everyone in the market who has a requirement from 500. Square foot to 500,000 square foot, knowing and asking for white school, and we are miles away from there at the moment, but hopefully one day we'll get there.

Adrian Strittmatter:

So got market constraints and sort of a deadline to hit the building you've got block as you said How can someone I mean how quickly that process take to

Tom Fowler:

Yeah. so an existing building, could be six weeks, could be we can get someone on site pretty quickly. We've got an amazing team of, engineers based in London um, are are are great at getting in and around buildings. the way it works with our certifications is if it's an existing building or a building that's in design, rather than just marking someone's homework and saying, not bad, six out of 10, please pay our invoice and we'll come and tap a few years time for another It's. It's The report, the building shows or our evidence review shows you are here, your peers are here, and this is how you

Adrian Strittmatter:

is the actionable

Tom Fowler:

So it's an existing building and there's lots of things that could be done, the client might say, great, we're gonna work on this for six to nine months. And so the certification process would take a lot longer, but it can be turned around in a very, very, very short period of time.

Adrian Strittmatter:

And do get actively involved in that implementation Yeah

Tom Fowler:

Thank Thankfully I I what I'm talking about. but the company does as well. we are not the people who pull fiber into or install smart meters, but we would be advising on who you speak to to get that done, what of it should look like, how it can be incorporated. and I think a lot of the, the most most. Valuable work we've done on projects is where that behind the scenes step, getting from here to here. That's where we do a, a lot of, a lot of value. And it's that, that's the really cool things.'cause you can go back to, to someone and say the building was a six outta 10 and it's now a nine outta 10. And you can really sit down and evidence the work that's been done. And the clients tend to like that as well because if we're dealing with, a head of asset management or a fund manager, they like being able to say. I've made this building better to why is better.

Adrian Strittmatter:

I've got my badge I got my swim badge a Final question why do you feel that ever and in the future connectivity and connectivity of tech is going to become more and more important for buildings and destinations

Tom Fowler:

because if we come back to the, the rate of change we talked about earlier, the, the rate of change in buildings isn't really accelerating and, and, and hasn't done for If you were to have a time machine and grab someone from a hundred years ago and ask them what an office building looks like, they draw you a picture of. Basically what an office building looked like today. whereas the, the examples of what they would expect technology to do is just worlds apart. And I'm sure you use chat GPT AI just as much as I do, and we have barely scratched the surface. We don't really know what these things could do for us or what the possibilities are. And unfortunately all, maybe what the risks are as it's a very fair concern for a lot of people. So that gap that we're trying to bridge at wide score between the. The pace of change in tech and the pace of change in buildings is growing and growing and growing. And that's why I think that getting that right at a building level is so important because it can genuinely enrich an experience. There are some things that can, that can be done with, with technology and it's fascinating to see those use cases, but you've gotta get the building blocks right.

Adrian Strittmatter:

you be online and you won't get the

Tom Fowler:

a wise

Adrian Strittmatter:

No And then final to to our listeners then Are different levels of that accreditation There

Tom Fowler:

are uh, certified silver, gold to platinum. Yeah. So confusingly gold is second best and silver is third. Which one? We'll Yeah,

Adrian Strittmatter:

exactly a bit like wedding rings

Tom Fowler:

Yeah,

Adrian Strittmatter:

Excellent Tom thanks ever much for

Tom Fowler:

for having me.

Adrian Strittmatter:

Super enlightening Awesome.