Connells Survey and Valuation extends digital footprint through new surveying team

We are pleased to announce that Connells Survey & Valuation Ltd., now has more than 300 surveyors using the Landmark Quest 'Q-Mobile' property data capture solution to generate major efficiencies with valuation service delivery to mortgage lenders.

In July 2014 Connells Survey & Valuation was awarded the exclusive contract to deliver valuation panel management services to Principality Building Society.  Under the contract, Principality Chartered Surveyors also joined Connells Survey & Valuation business.

Q-Mobile, used in conjunction with Panasonic Toughbooks, improves workflow, standardises surveyors’ site notes and allows Connells’ surveyors to access supporting data for each valuation report while they are on site.  

The mobile software provides a seamless process from the receipt of a valuation instruction, scheduling the appointment, undertaking research and the inspection, through to transmission of the valuation report to the client. Connells have been pioneers in developing and using Landmark Quest’s Q-Mobile, which has supported their surveyors being more efficient in responding to increasingly complex service requirements and improving the customer journey.

Matthew Morgan, Area Director, Connells Survey & Valuation (former Chief Surveyor at Principality Surveyors), comments: “At Principality Surveyors we were researching the best mobile technology system on the market.  Connells Survey & Valuation has an unparalleled reputation for quality service delivery and had already made a major investment in its service involving Landmark Q-Mobile and tablet PCs. This was taken into consideration during the tender process.”

Ross Bowen, Managing Director of Connells Survey & Valuation, adds, “Using Q-Mobile has delivered tangible benefits to our clients and superior customer outcomes. We are now even better placed to manage our surveyors’ workloads and work patterns during the course of the day. Within the space of just a few weeks of rolling out Q-Mobile, it has become the established platform underpinning the delivery of our professional valuation services.”

Ross Bowen explains that introducing the new surveying team to Q-Mobile and the latest mobile working methods required three days’ initial training, but has paid dividends in efficient working practices and time saved when responding to queries: “When a query is raised by an underwriter or solicitor, we can push this out to surveyors in the field and they can respond immediately and effectively. Information such as site plans, photos and post valuation queries are all in one place, so it is much easier to access at the surveyor’s fingertips, speeding response times to clients and their time to mortgage offer. Using Q-Mobile in the field has also more than halved the time taken to respond to post valuation queries from two days to under one day.”

Whilst highlighting the benefits, Ross Bowen emphasises that Connells’ investment in Q-Mobile and tablet PCs was part of implementing its next generation service delivery model. “Being able to access data from mobile devices in real time is a major change for our industry and it’s helping to evolve the working patterns of the profession.”

Rachel Brookes, Product Manager at Landmark Quest comments, “We are delighted to be able to support the integration of the former Principality Chartered Surveyors into Connells Survey & Valuation, by using our mobile data capture software to standardise reports and improve validation, efficiency and quality for all surveyors. We will continue to work with Connells to further develop Q-Mobile to incorporate datasets, such as the homebuyer report.”

More details: 

Panasonic Toughbooks 

Connells Survey & Valuation

Darwin’s Theory of…. The Internet of Things

In real terms, it wasn’t that long since the online world became available. In the early 1990s, all of the components were put in place which enabled what we now know as the Internet – hypertext based internets of web pages, links and web browsers. This enabled people to interconnect with each other in a way previously unimaginable, and gave widespread access to a wealth of information.

Internet technology has been consistently maturing since then, and you may now hear mention of “The Internet of Things”. At Landmark, we’re interested in technology that allows our customers to interact more effectively and gain better business value with technology, so I’ll share some fundamental details about IoT (Internet of Things).

The IoT enables communication between physical objects attached to the same network – currently estimated at six billion devices online – and creates completely new opportunities. It allows groups of interconnected systems to share information and insight so that each device in the connected system can do its job more intelligently. There has long been talk of your fridge being able to sense if you’re low on milk and order more for home delivery, and this is becoming a reality. I personally like the idea, although have a slight concern that my white goods may end up with a better social life than I do.

Landmark is proud to be ISO14001 accredited, which is the standard for environmental management. We like to see technology being used to this objective. Take the company Enlighted, for example (http://enlightedinc.com/)- they make very intelligent lighting that saves energy through only providing light where it is needed. This is nothing new, and many has been the early morning where I walk into the Landmark office to recreate Michael Jackson’s “Billy Jean” video as the lights switch on while I walk to my desk. Enlighted is extending this technology to connect with room booking systems so that the lighting can sense which rooms are not in use, regardless of their booked status.

I talked in my last Blog post about Virtual Reality (VR) and how augmented reality can be used to layer useful information over your real world view. Once this technology is extended and your VR device connects to other systems of devices, the insight and quality of information becomes exponentially more useful. For example, your futuristic car has VR built into its windscreen and you’re driving to one of Landmark’s excellent CPD Events. A few miles ahead, another car has sensed that it has stopped while on a road and, as that car is IoT connected, has automatically updated a central traffic monitor of the problem.

The traffic monitor has received similar reports from a number of cars in that specific area and uses that knowledge to deduce that there is a congestion problem. This central monitoring device, in turn, sends a message to all traffic heading in that direction, and advises of alternate routes and how busy those routes are. All displayed on your windscreen. All in real time and without any intervention from you.

Let’s think that through for a minute: less energy is wasted as a result and therefore less pollution from energy usage and production. Less time is wasted so we can be more productive. Risks of further issues from high volumes of congested traffic are greatly reduced. It’s a very effective use of technology.

Venture Capital funding into this area has been significant, so you can expect the range of IoT devices to grow in the coming months. I’ll look forward to helping our customers exploit and benefit from those new and exciting opportunities in the near future.

Darwin Lee

Head of Development
Landmark Information Group

Darwin’s Theory of….Virtual Reality

Have you ever found yourself wondering where technology will take us next? At Landmark we’ve been asking ourselves that very question about augmented multimedia, often referred to as Virtual Reality, and wanted to share a few things with you.

We’ve seen two main styles of technology which we think are relevant to our customers and we’ve classed them as “assistive” and “immersive”. The assistive style presents you with something in addition to your view of the world but does not necessary fully integrate with it. The immersive style will either replace or fully integrate with your experience of the world around you. Let’s take a quick look at some examples.

Our Google Glass device is a good example of assistive VR. The unit provides a small projected image directly in front of your eye which appears as the equivalent of a 25 inch screen about 8 feet away. It responds to movements of the head and has a touch sensitive panel to one side for more direct manual controls. There is nothing between your eyes and the world except a small panel of information so it feels a very natural experience. As it accepts voice commands and has voice recognition, this makes it particularly useful in situations when speaking will allow you to do more activities in parallel.

 

 

With immersive VR, we’ll look at two ends of the cost spectrum. For the more premium user, we have the Oculus Rift. This device is fully immersive (YouTube videos of user reactions will show you some of the down sides of this!). Slightly different projections of the same image are directed at each eye, giving the effect of 3D reality. Couple this with a good pair of headphones and it is incredibly effective for simulations in controlled conditions. Oculus VR started via Kickstarter, the crowd funding site, and Facebook purchased the company for $2 billion earlier this year so we eagerly await how the technology will be exploited.

On a lower budget, we have Google Cardboard. This is a fantastic, low tech, reuse of everyday hardware to create a virtual reality experience – and it started life as a hobby project at Google. It is a cardboard headset in which you place your mobile phone. The “Cardboard” phone app then replicates the experience of more expensive headsets by displaying the two slightly different images on each half of your phone screen. Using the phone’s camera and spatial awareness, this creates a very passable version of the technology. All for around £15.

 

 

Finally, something between the two. Layar is an app which has been around for some time and creates layers of information on top of reality. It uses the spatial awareness of your mobile device to plot useful information on the image seen by your mobile device’s camera. It’s not immersive, but does allow your view of the world to be augmented with useful information. This technology is frequently used with printed media (newspapers / magazines) to add augmented reality to two dimensional media.

 

 

In summary, and unsurprisingly, we think that each flavour of virtual reality technology has potential uses and pitfalls. We will track the progress of this technology as we continually look for new and innovative ways to empower our customers, and provide the most effective access to our products and data.

Darwin Lee

Head of Development
Landmark Information Group