It’s been a year since I joined SearchFlow and what appealed to me from the outset is the fact that the property industry is on a journey of automation and digitisation, with growing prominence on information  being relied upon as the ‘backbone’ of the new economy.

Of course, since then the Covid-19 lockdown has really highlighted the role that digitisation and technology really plays.

While in the short term, the market is likely to be tough for property lawyers and conveyancers, I believe challenge drives experimentation and change, with the desire to find new ways of doing things.  Right now the time between work completed by a law firm and payment is critical.

As such, the law firm of the future will be very different and I believe that we will see more change and innovation in the property industry within the next 10 years than we have in the last 50 years put together as more firms embrace digitised data, integration of workflows, online services and increased automation of administrative processes.

This will of course be the same in all other areas of the property transaction process – from estate agents at the front end as well as mortgage professionals in the centre.

This whole experience has also highlighted the importance of having a strong continuity plan in place, which enables firms to maintain operations with staff working remotely, but importantly while maintaining standards, security and service levels.

As I see it, we’re going through a ‘proof of concept’ phase now, and there will be firms which continue to adopt this approach and are likely to make significant overhead savings in the process. The competitive landscape will adjust as a result.

Accepting change

Change is always a hard thing, however when forced upon you, those that accept change or are agile in their approach will succeed.  Recent events have really highlighted to me that underlying trends will now be accelerated – including embracing data and technology.

We are leaning into the future, embracing disruption and are fortunate to have the resources required to invest in the next round of innovation.

As with past disruptions, the market will recover, new ways of working will be adopted and we will be more resilient than ever. This time last year, when I joined the team, who would have thought we would all be working from home – and that we would have adapted in just a matter of days and weeks? It’s fair to say, we can handle more change than we think.

Dr Thomas Quirke is managing director of SearchFlow